You Can't UnRing the Bell
by danagabrielle
Summary: Spoilers/speculation from the 100th on The Aftermath as we see it: Did they really have to do that? Booth sure seemed to think so. After what had just happened... She would definitely never fully understand that man. CH 6&7 M RATED
1. Let's Move On We've Got Work to Do

**A.N. :**** I know! I haven't updated my fic in progress in a while. But, in my defence, I got a new job AND I got overwhelmed by the hiatus. And of course, by the latest spoilers. And the new episode. And... So I had to partner up for this idea. That's why TLN (**_**Ouriana**_** on Fanforum) and I are bringing you this "spoiler-induced" speculative fic. Here's the aftermath of the 100****th**** as speculated by us! **

**btw you can check out our BB video, it totally goes with this fic! : It's at "youtube"(dot)com/watch?v=pS-dHtjhSa0**

Chapter 1  
LET'S MOVE ON – WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO

"So! Illinois, huh?" Sweets tried to sound as normal as possible, but the truth was that the air had left the room as soon as the partners had come into his office. Only four days had passed since they had insisted on rectifying some about-to-be-published misconceptions. He hadn't seen them since... and he had the feeling they hadn't seen each other either. There was a buttload of unsaid between them, it seemed. The psychologist couldn't quiet his gut. He was curious. Something had to have happened, because they looked fine when they had left that evening. "That's gonna be interesting. Easy access to the suspects... Since you know these people, it'll make it easier for you to get information. But I would advise that agent Booth didn't go as a full-blown FBI agent."

Brennan frowned.

"What else do you suggest he goes as? He _is_ a FBI agent." Then she thought she understood. "You mean, you think he shouldn't go to the reunion. That I can do it on my own? Because if it's the case, I agree."

"What? You can't go alone!" Booth yelped.

"Why not?"

"Because! The investigation part of the job is _mine_. _I_'m the agent."

Brennan quickly went on the defensive, gesturing towards Sweets.

"I don't want to steal your job, Booth. Sweets is the one who said..."

The shrink raised both hands for her to stop.

"Hey! I was just saying that he shouldn't go in badge first."

"I can be discreet Sweets."

"Of course. I was just thinking that it would be easier for you both to crack the case if no one suspected you were there to crack the case. You know? Like... Like what you did at the circus! That was good."

Brennan looked from Booth to Sweets, slightly feeling out of the conversation. They were talking about _her_ high school reunion, after all. Not that she really wanted to go, but still.

"I can't go to my alma mater as part of a Russian knives thrower married couple!" she exclaimed. "They _know_ who I am already. They know I'm an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist, and I'm pretty hard to miss on the New York Times bestseller's list."

Booth chuckled; Brennan wasn't sure which part of her explanation had made him laugh. But she didn't like it.

Sweets clarified.

"No, I didn't mean the Russian knives thrower part. Just the..."

"... Married couple part?" she finished for him.

"Yes."

It was Brennan's turn to chuckle. But they didn't seem to think it was funny. And she sat up straighter.

"Wait, what? You can't be serious!" she added.

Sweets swallowed hard. After pushing them with his book, maybe pushing them to pretend to be married wasn't the best way to go. _Don't react, Lance. If they smell fear, they attack, you know that._

Her eyes reached Booth's. He seemed perfectly calm. It threw her more than she could even know. _What the..._

Sweets started explaining things rationally. Her brain understood. She did not. But it didn't matter, because ten minutes later, they were on their way to become fake man-and-wife.

***

Normally, she wouldn't have cared. She loved doing undercover operations with Booth. But this... Going there as _herself _and parading him around as her _husband? _No, the timing really wasn't optimum. After everything that had been said, unsaid, confirmed and deformed...

She pushed the door out of the Hoover Building and breathed in the fresh spring air. She still felt trapped. She wasn't really waiting for him, but she knew he was right behind her, and out of habit, she slowed her pace.

She had been forced to agree because, before all this, she would have said yes without hesitation. Had she refused, Booth would have wondered why and all, and they would have missed the reunion. Not that it would have been a bad thing, considering her stomach had been upset from the day she had gotten the reminder letter of convocation. Or _invitation_. Yeah, right.

Her car was parked on the other side of the street. She stopped on the corner and waited for the red light to go away.

Booth stopped right beside her, hands shoved into his pockets, fingers fumbling with his poker chip. When he realized what he was doing, he let it go and turned his hands into fists. That loss he had taken four days ago should have killed his gambling addiction. Putting it out of his mind, he cleared his throat and watched the cars pass in front of them. Anything not to gaze at her beautiful face. He could still picture the surprise –No, the shock– on it. That flash of pain in her eyes, the... _Right. The cars. Focus on the cars._

"You want to grab a bite to eat before you go back to the lab?" he let out, casually. He had asked her that same question at least a hundred times before. Never had it felt like today.

"Uhm... No. I really have a lot to do before this weekend."

He nodded, still not looking at her. But he could feel her stare on the side of his jaw. Which clenched unintentionally.

"What?" he asked, finally turning to her. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Hairs," she bluntly stated.

He couldn't help but laugh this time.

"Well, yes. I _am_ a man."

"You usually shave every couple of days."

"Very observant of you."

_Ok. Enough already!_

"Booth..." She grabbed his elbow and forced him to look at her again. She held his gaze until she was sure he wasn't going to look away. And she continued. "Why did you agree with Sweets' idea? Don't you think it's unnecessary?"

He shrugged. And away turned his eyes again, to the light that wasn't red anymore but was about to change to yellow.

"What? You want me to go back up there and tell him that we want a divorce?" he joked.

_Very funny._

That snarky sarcastic condescending tone... He hadn't used it with her over in 5 years. And she realized just how much she did not miss it. But she took on herself, without even sighing. She just looked down. _Fine._ The more he wanted to josh around, the more she needed to be serious.

"I just thought it would be difficult for you considering..."

His face quickly turned to her. Was she really bringing this up? _Here? _If he saw even one fraction of a hint of pity, he was going to lose it.

"Considering what?" he verified.

Her eyebrows rose up. Now she had to sigh. Something told her he was doing this on purpose, but since she wasn't sure...

"You don't remember?" she asked. "We were standing right over there."

Booth gathered all his energy and willed himself not to blink and wince as he died to do.

"If I remember? Are you serious?"

She kept quiet. And her silence made his voice grow louder.

"Of course I remember. Yes!"

Her upper body slightly leaned back as she took it in. She had lost it completely. The ability to know right away how to handle him: gone. She had no idea who that man was anymore. Or didn't she?

"Then... this won't be..."

PLUS, she had apparently lost the capacity to talk in complete sentences.

"Work," he interrupted her. "It'll be work. As usual. Because we're still partners, Bones. Right? I thought it was the whole point."

Guilt washed over him as the same shadow of hurt he had seen a few days before appeared in the blue her eyes. He tried to go back. He tried to get her back.

"Plus, it'll be good for you," he said.

But she clearly did not understand. _Because you're making so much sense, Seeley._

"You know... You can show all those retards at that school how great your life has been since they're out of your life."

She tilted her head.

"I don't need a husband for that," she refuted with a smile. A genuine smile.

The light turned to green and they started walking to the other side.

When she caught herself about to link her arm with his, Brennan realized acting normal would be more difficult than she had anticipated. Wracking her brain to find something remotely funny to say to make him laugh or smile or do anything other than nothing, she tripped over her own feet and almost lost her balance.

Booth instinctively went to grab her by the waist so she wouldn't end up on her face in the middle of the street. But as soon as his hand touched her, she literally jumped a few inches away.

"Bones, would you relax?" he laughed.

Heart racing –because of the almost fall, what else?- she stopped walking and turned to him.

"What?" she asked, unaware he had noticed how... weird she felt.

He looked at his feet before telling her what he wanted her to hear.

"It was clear, you know."

"What was clear?" she retorted tit for tat, still breathing heavily from her clumsiness.

"Our talk," he said. And for once, she didn't wonder what he was referring to. "It was clear. We both agreed, so... don't worry."

"I'm not worried," she admitted. _Not about that._

But Booth wanted her to really get what he was saying. So he added,

"I'm not going to... you know... grab you and kiss you or anything."

He saw her chest heave heavily, and she blinked slowly. But her voice was surprisingly steady when she replied.

"Why would I think that?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know! You jumped when I touched you. I just didn't want you to fall flat on your face, that's all."

She shook her head.

"I told you countless times that I can take care of myself, Booth."

"Right." He put his hands back into his pockets. "Next time, I'll just stand there and watch you take a plunge."

Suddenly, she couldn't wait to be home. Alone. Without all this crap.

"You do that," she said, quickly reaching her car door. "If I have to fall, I'll fall."

"Fine!" he said, giving up. Again.

"Thank you!" she snapped, before slamming the door and starting the engine.

***

It was very early morning; the sun was barely up. But they already were in Sweets' office for some last minute preparation before they had to drive to the airport to catch their flight to O'Hare.

"So!" the psychologist yelped, cutting right in.

_That voice should be illegal before 7 am._

"Are you ready to act like a married couple or should we try some exercises?" he went on.

"We're gonna be fine, Sweets. We argue all the time anyway, so that's not gonna be a problem."

Brennan's head spun towards him.

"_That's _your vision of marriage? Two people arguing?" she asked. After a pause, she added, "Then why do you want to get married so badly?"

"What?!" Booth shrieked. "Who said I wanted to get married badly?"

"_You_ did!" she assured him.

"Oh, I did not. Maybe I said something like I would like to..."

"No. I clearly recall you saying with the utmost certainty that you..."

Sweets jumped in.

"Yeah ! Ok ! Who am I kidding? You're gonna do just fine."

The partners turned away from each other, just enough for a trained psychologist to see. But, for the moment, this particular one seemed to be fretfully looking for something. He was going through his drawers, his pockets, looking under his books... When he crawled down on the floor to look under the sofa they were sitting on, Brennan really wanted to know.

"Did you lose something, Dr. Sweets?"

"Beside your mind..." Booth mumbled.

"I..." He didn't finish his sentence when his face lit up. "I left your wedding rings in my car. I'll be right back." And he fled.

"Wedding rings?" Brennan repeated, although the young doctor was already gone.

"You know... Small circular jewellery that people wear as a promise of eternal love?"

She sighed.

"I know what they are. I just don't understand why we'd have to wear them."

Booth didn't know why, but part of him really wanted to wear a wedding ring. Even if just for two days. Just to see what it felt like.

"If we want to convince your friends at the reunion..." he said before she interrupted him.

"They're not my friends."

So he tried again.

"If we wanna be convincing, we have to wear wedding rings. That's all. Simple."

She was still making a face.

"It's just an old tradition that people like to honor, ok, Bones?"

She tilted her head, facts pouring in.

"That tradition is probably older than you might think. The oldest recorded exchange of wedding rings comes from ancient Egypt, about 4,800 years ago."

Booth smiled widely, but his smile turned to a frown as she continued to babble.

"But I don't see how rings are still relevant in this day and age. Especially since, when you think about it, the ring was exclusively worn only by women, and it was a sign that somebody already _owned _them."

Booth chuckled.

"Wow. You're such a romantic. Why am I even surprised anymore?"

She shook her head.

"No, I'm not saying..."

But he cut her off.

"Look, I'll wear one too, ok? We'll be equally owned by each other."

His words crept inside of her, sneakily, and rattled her throat.

"Well... We're not _really _getting married, Booth."

"Oh! Thanks for reminding me!" he laughed out loud. Then grew so serious that even she knew he was still joking. "I totally thought this was real."

So she played along.

"You're welcome."

And they smiled. Their first genuine smile to each other in almost a week. It felt so good that it tore her up when it ended as soon as Sweets came back. They broke eye contact to focus on the two small velvet boxes the shrink set on the table in front of them. He pulled each lid open and let them see for themselves.

"How did you manage getting the FBI to pay for this? It takes them forever to sign off on reimbursing my lunch expenses," Booth said.

"They're probably fake," Brennan explained. But Sweets denied it.

"They're as real as they get. Just... They're a loan, ok? So... be careful."

Since neither of them looked like they would take them anytime soon, Sweets nudged the boxes.

"Go on, put them on."

Brennan looked at Booth out of the corner of her eye until she saw him reach for his ring. And then, she did the same. But at the last second, he took the one in front of her. She turned to him, eyes still on the ring he was now holding.

"I think that's mine, Booth. The woman usually wears the diamonds. Plus, your fingers are way too big to..."

Booth just smirked. And he held out his hand, palm up, so she'd give him hers.

Brennan's heart started racing. Of course, it was ridiculous. This meant nothing. Why was she feeling so nervous? And excited?

"Which hand do we put it on?" she asked, looking at Sweets.

"Aw, come one, Bones. You're doing this on purpose. Even _you_ know a wedding ring is worn on the left hand." Booth was starting to get annoyed with her. Couldn't she be normal, for once?

"Here? Yes. But that is the not the case everywhere. For example, a Greek Orthodox bride wears the ring on the left hand prior to the ceremony, then moves it to the right hand after the wedding. But in Norway, Russia, Poland, Denmark, to name only a few, the wedding ring is worn on the right hand. And in the Indian wedding tradition as well, since the left hand is considered inauspicious."

Her long tirade over, Booth asked,

"Well... are you Indian, Russian or Polish?"

"No..."

"Ok. So put down Wikipedia and give me your left hand."

And so she did. With reluctant anticipation. He hadn't touched her since... Should she be worried that the first time they had touched each other after was so he could slide a beautiful, delicate, diamond ring on her digitus medicinalis?

Once he was holding her hand, Booth wondered why he hadn't left her do it herself. But he didn't linger. He might have slowed down a little but as their eyes had met, but... nothing too damaging.

As soon as the ring was in place, she took her hand back. And hid it between her knees, turning to Sweets again.

"Well!" the doctor said. "I now pronounce you fake-husband and fake-wife. You may kiss the fake-bride."

As soon as the words were thrown out there, Sweets bit his tongue. Booth was barely breathing. As for Dr. Brennan, she was biting her lips, and scratching what was probably an imaginary itch under her nose.

So Lance laughed. "Or not!" He snorted a fake, more-than-nervous laugh. "Just kidding." And it seemed to go on for hours. Until he let his fake joke die a proper death.

"You're all set, guys. And Dr. Brennan, even though this is now a work-related event, I would advise you take the time to reconnect and..."

But she was already out the door. Maybe the hand gesturing had put her off.

***

On their way to the airport, Brennan was reading the files on her former classmates. Some of them really had peaked in High School. But she couldn't really concentrate. Every five seconds, she felt the ring on her left hand again. A constant reminder that it was there. Of what they were supposed to be. Or pretend to be. And she kept staring at it, as if staring it down would make it less weird on her skin.

"This is so distracting. I can't believe women wear these every day," she said, smiling when she turned to him.

He seemed pretty focused on the highway. He didn't respond.

"Isn't yours bothering you?" she tried to spark a conversation again. "I never thought you'd like wearing jewellery. You can't even wear your watch on your wrist more than a few hours. You prefer keeping it in your pocket."

"Feels fine."

_Well, at least he's not _not_ talking to you._

She sighed and turned to look outside.

She knew that... this whole situation was a big deal to her. Part of her was really glad she was about to show all those morons that she, Temperance Brennan, had found the perfect man. They didn't have to know she had turned him down.

If this was not a big deal to Booth, if he was fine with the whole thing… it probably meant that she had done the right thing turning him down. It probably meant his feelings weren't that deep.

_**TBC...**_

**So? What do you think? Are you in?? Tell us, please? Then, maybe, just maybe, the 100****th**** episode will come faster for you. Doesn't hurt to try, huh?  
**


	2. Let's Pretend We're Not Pretending

**A.N.****: ****Alright, this is TLN (Ourania) and this is my first collaboration on a ****Bones**** fic. I am particularly honored to participate in this adventure with someone as talented as Annick and responded to her request by adapting -as much as possible- to her style. I hope you'll like it (enough to review and increase both our egomaniac creativity :D)**

**Disclaimer:**** Not ours. But we rock at theories and they're ours. AH.**

Chapter 2  
LET'S PRETEND WE ARE NOT PRETENDING TO PRETEND**  
**

Her perfume was devilishly sweet. It seemed new. Over the years he had learned to recognize the different perfumes corresponding to different occasions. The numerous memories corresponding to these occasions made him cringe subconsciously. There was the 'date perfume', as he called it. It was as alluring as her choice of clothing, as inviting as her glowing lips. It was the perfume that had made him fear to lose her for years. Then there was the 'special event perfume'. It was stronger, more feminine but it created a distance. He could not explain how or why. He just knew she would wear it during the various social functions they had to attend together. He wondered if it was scientifically possible to select perfumes in relation with their effect on hormones. Or something. He drew closer to smell her hair; maybe it was her shampoo, after all. He would have noticed if she had changed her perfume...

Hell, he was losing it. She was like a drug to him, there was nothing more to it. No years of constant presence and yearning could be explained by hormonally attractive perfumes. He just effing loved her and there was no taking it back. There was no moving on either, no matter what he had said. No matter how badly he had meant it.

When she felt him draw closer she looked up at him, puzzled.

"What is it?" she said, trying her best not to draw away. They had an audience, she tried to remind herself.

He smiled, unable to conceal his discomfort.

"Nothing I just..." he had to find something clever to say. They were not alone, and he had a hard time focusing on that detail. "I just wondered if..." _Way to go Seeley, stuttering your way out of that quagmire_. "I felt like dancing." _Shit_.

Now she was taken aback, and unable to hide it.

"I... You want to?"

_I have no effing idea_.

"Yes."

She considered his idea an instant and realized that since both had avoided physical contact when unnecessary in the past week, it was probably case related. They had found no opportunity to discuss the evolution of their investigation so far, both of them forced to put on that marital sham for the benefit of former schoolmates she barely remembered. She hated pretense. It did not matter how he would tell her this was another undercover operation, to her it was not. They were just an intimately involved version of themselves, for professional purposes. Even she could sense the twisted irony in all that.

But they were stuck. She was Mrs. Seeley Booth, tonight. And dozens of people had told them that it seemed meant to be. How could they know? They did not even know them. They were only responding to basic criterion of physical adequacy. Booth knew. He had told her he knew... If only she could know too.

She took his hand.

"Then let's dance."

His squeezed her fingers slightly, enough for her to feel the disturbing presence of her wedding ring.

_Not _my _wedding ring, _the_ wedding ring._

They gave an awkward smile to the couple they had been chatting with -interrogating, rather- and made their way towards the dance floor. It felt like all eyes were on them. Most likely because it was true. This was precisely why they could not jeopardize their investigation for personal considerations. Bittersweet, fucked up, pathetic irony of their being partners in too many ways. Luckily, the song that played did not invite to further contacts. A slight booty shaking would be sufficient. No touching, no holding, no smelling; just the painful awareness of the other's presence, so close and yet so far away.

"So?"

_What, so? What does she want to hear? Is there something left for me to say anyway?_

"Yes?"

She frowned.

"Did you learn anything?"

"About what?"

_Is this some kind of joke?_

"The suspects," she whispered. "What do you think?"

_Oh that._

"I can't say. It's too early."

_And I didn't pay attention._

"You're usually keen to share your first impressions," she answered, conscious that her choice for the adverb 'usually' had a different connotation than what she had intended.

He smiled. It was a sardonic, disillusioned smile. _Sharing my first impressions did not get me anywhere with you lately, right? _

"I guess I was too busy trying to figure out why you were head over heels for that creep," he said while discreetly pointing towards Andy Pfleuger.

"I wasn't 'head over heels' for him!" When she realized she had been too loud, she pressed her lips together tightly, apologetically. This conversation was not going where she wanted to, yet she could not prevent herself from arguing. "I merely entertained the thought of a relationship before he publicly humiliated me," she exclaimed. _God, why can't anything I say sound right?_

An instant, she feared he would react to her comment, but he did not. He took it as another unintentional blow from her. It hurt, but he was used to that feeling. It did not help cure him from her anyway.

"Imagine your life if you had married Andy Pfleuger… Wow."

_Now this is a joke, right?_

"I was determined not to marry until I graduated from College. Meaning I would never have married him, since I last saw him when I left High School."

He frowned.

"Does it mean at some point you actually considered marriage?"

"Before I started studying cultural anthropology, I had no idea that marriage only represented a legally binding contract between distinct parties on an institutional level."

Luckily that would make him stop asking questions she was not any more ready to answer than a week before.

_Or not._

"Who did you dream of marrying?" he said, with the first genuinely mischievous smile she saw him put on in... way too long.

It did not occur to her that despite his smile, he felt like a masochistic loser.

_I dreamed of marrying someone like you._

"I don't know."

"Come on! 1994, you must have been one of those teenage girls in love with Dylan McKay or Brandon Walsh or something..."

_Now he's making fun of me, right?_

"Who are they?"

He chuckled, wondering why he was torturing himself that way.

"_90210_? _Beverly Hills_?"

"Thank you, I know the zip code of Beverly Hills," she answered, slightly offended.

"It's a TV show, Bones! You never watched it? It was like, the biggest deal back in those days. Brenda and Brandon Walsh from Minnesota, they moved to Beverly Hills and went to High School with all these rich kids with convertibles and pool houses!"

"Introducing new elements in a secluded environment is one of the most contrived narrative techniques employed in the entertainment industry," she remarked, quite earnestly.

Her seriousness made him laugh, for real this time.

_I love her, dammit. Why can't she be dull and stupid and... ugly? And smell bad too? _

"You got that one right, Bones."

She welcomed his laugh with relief. It felt good not to fear his reactions for a second. If only things could get back to normal. _Normal how anyway?_

She inadvertently bumped into him as she danced and threatened to fall backwards. He caught her in-extremis. _When had she become so clumsy?_

She blushed.

"Thank you"

_Thank you?!_

"What, no more 'Let me fall, Booth'?"

"Since we are supposed to convince everyone that we are married, it would be counterproductive of me to refuse your support," she whispered as she tried to recompose herself.

_Sweets is right, I'm messed up._

"Counterproductive?"

"As a husband your role is to support me metaphorically and financially. Those are the terms of the institutional contract representing marriage. It derives from a very ancient rite linked to the primitive instinct of survival of tr..."

He cut her off with a kiss. It came out of nowhere but she did not fight it any more than she had fought their kiss outside the Hoover building, a week before. She had tried to ignore, forget this lingering memory. But his touch, his smell, his voice kept haunting her since that night. For the first time in five years he had looked fragile, helpless. For the first time she should have been the one protecting him from harm and she had not.

_No, I have. I protected him from me, from my messed up self._

_What got into me? _He would have broken the kiss apologetically if she had not responded to it. Given some lousy excuse like 'people are watching' or 'I was just trying to shut you up'. But she did respond. She was now. Was her tongue in his mouth or was he simply hallucinating again? Kissing her felt like home, like it was meant to be, like... like she had been molded specifically for his arms and lips. That was the unfairness of fate.

He broke it off slowly, gently. Almost afraid to open his eyes and see that same expression he had faced the last time he had dared to cross that line. But she just smiled, her eyes tightly shut. Unafraid, it seemed.

She licked her lips, attempting to catalog all those sensations. Maybe because she knew it would be her only chance. After all, he had told her: he had to move on. And he would. He had probably kissed her because people were watching, or to shut her up anyway. But she did not mind. It made her forget that it was going to be awkward and tensed again, maybe forever. _Until he leaves me for good. _

"I'm sorry." _Well, not really._

"It's alright. People are watching us. You did what you had to do." she answered, suddenly bitter.

"Maybe we should get back to work." He had no other answer. No more argument. He could only accept the inevitability of their mutual discomfort, of their irreconcilable differences.

She nodded, immediately drawing away. She could not cry just now.

***

She desperately tried to remember the name of the woman she was talking to, while observing Booth from afar. He was 'befriending' with one of the potential suspects –yet another name she could not associate with yet another face. Plain Caucasian traits, average height and weight. Dull man talking to her man. _My man? Oh please. I only had two glasses of punch._

"Seriously back then I would never have thought that you, out of anyone, would become like... wow! It's real great!"

"I have a very high I.Q, coupled with an exceptional learning curve. It is really no surprise as to the extent of my professional success."

She barely looked at the woman while talking, entirely focused on her 'husband'. Whether it appeared like disdain or disinterest, she had no idea. Not that she cared. She had better things to do than to preserve the sensitivity of someone who had probably made her life miserable 16 years before.

"Uh, sure," the woman grimaced, desperate to find another subject of conversation. You did not get the chance to socialize with a best-selling author every day, no matter how that author used to be dorky back in High School. "And how about your husband, how did you guys meet?"

Bones eyed her 'husband' once more. This time he looked back, enveloping her with this smile she knew so well. That made her shiver. Was that pretense? _Of course it is. All of this is nothing but pretense. I chose this. I asked for it_.

"We met six years ago, for work."

"Oh really, what does he do?"

They had decided upon his alleged career, but she could not remember it just then. His gaze was too overwhelming. All this was too irrational for her to think properly. She could not work efficiently when in constant introspection. She gave him a desperate look.

_Help me_.

He literally ran towards her.

"Hey, honey!"

_White knight syndrome, uh?_

As he put his hand over her shoulder, she let herself fall onto his side, relieved. He welcomed this gesture by caressing her arm. It felt so natural to her, frighteningly natural. It felt like he had been molded to shelter her, to embrace her body with his own.

_I'm__ being ridiculous_.

"Hey!" she answered with exaggerated enthusiasm. _What sort of pet name does he expect me to use?_ She had never been comfortable with monikers until... Until him. Always him. "We were talking about you, baby." _Baby? Oh God._

_Baby? Wow._

"Me? I guess that's what happens when you have found the perfect man, right?"

He seemed to enjoy it. Was he rubbing her face in the insanity of her sacrifice or was he simply being polite? Pretense. It was pretense.

_I hate it. All of it. I want to leave_.

"Actually we were talking about your job."

"Oh, yeah," he said, checking rapidly the expression of his beloved 'wife' to see if she had let something slip."I'm a journalist. Temperance and I met for an interview, after she published her first book. Or was that before, honey? I don't remember. All I know is that I fell in love the moment I saw her. Just like that."

She jumped up as he snapped his fingers together. Luckily, the woman was absorbed by Booth's usual ability at mesmerizing a chosen prey.

"Love at first sight, uh?" the woman cooed.

"Exactly. I remember the day, the hour, the place... What she was wearing," he added, with a suggestive smile. "I knew that would happen." He took Bones' hand to show off her diamond.

_Fake_ diamond._ Fake_ marriage. Real love.

_Why is he doing this to me? To himself?_

"How long have you been married?"

"Almost five years." He did not hesitate. That was the time they had spent as partners.

"Wow, you guys did not wait long! Temperance just told me you met 6 years ago!"

That poor woman had no idea that her words felt like daggers in the hearts of both. They felt like they had spent their lives waiting for something that never happened. That could never happen. _That should never happen,_ Bones thought_._

Booth put on his best charm smile, anxious to palliate to the silent discomfort of his 'wife'.

"You can't wait when you meet someone like Temperance. She's too precious to lose."

_She is gonna kill me. _

He tried to pretend he was doing this for pretense. For the sake of all this investigative sham. The truth is that he wanted to feel what it was like to have her.

_I am losing it, completely losing it._ _You know what? Shit._

"I actually proposed twice before she accepted."

She tensed immediately. He could feel her against him.

"Wh... Why are you saying that?" she whispered.

It did not matter how it would be interpreted. She was too confused to care.

"Because it's a nice story, honey!" he answered, pressing her against him to obtain her cooperation. Then he turned his attention towards the woman. "She's a free spirit, very self-sufficient, modern woman, you know? So marriage was out of the question for her. I had to be persuasive."

Bones frowned. _Is he drawing upon Angela and Hodgins' experience?_

"Gosh, I'm too curious for my own good, but how did it work out?"

Seeing the woman's interest, Bones remembered her role and decided that for the sake of the investigation she ought to support her pretend-husband in his enterprise. She mirrored his smile, and kissed him on the cheek.

"It worked out very well," she stated. "I could never have refused such a proposal. You should tell her, Seeley."

_Trapped in my own mess. Of course_.

"Sure," he let out a nervous chuckle, gathering his thoughts. "I... I had tried all the regular stuff. Dinner and candles, down on one knee, but she kept telling me that this was 'unnecessary paraphernalia' and that having each other was enough. So, I decided to focus on the essential. I asked her if she felt that she could love me fifty years from now, because... I could. I said this was all I wanted. And she said yes."

_I'm a loser_.

"Gosh, this is so romantic!" the woman exclaimed.

She did not notice that Bones' eyes were filling with tears.

_I said no to this. I said no..._

When he realized what he had done, he suppressed his own emotions.

"Yeah, look at that. Temperance, each time you want me to tell that story and each time you end up in tears!"

_Or I will end up in tears, again. So virile._

"I can't help it, I love that story. It's like it happened last week."

_Did she just do sarcasm? Well, sort of._

Booth swallowed instead of responding. Hard. His gaze was more intense than he had intended. He felt it was scaring her. Maybe he was going too far with this whole… Yes. Definitely. He had scared her once. Enough. He had to react, fast.

"You wanna dance, honey?" he tried. Just to get away from this whole fairytale improv.

She took a breath.

_Pretense_.

"Sure."

***

The security of his embrace, as he rocked her to some 1990s tune, felt like another stab to her heart. She had chosen not to talk just yet, not to question his motives. Like their kiss, it felt like an instant isolated from time and space, where they were together without all the weight of this word... Together. She felt loved and protected in his arms, but it was not right. It was not true. Her inner contradictions forced her to fight again, always.

"Why did you do that?" she exclaimed suddenly, as she pushed her way out of his grasp.

He had awaited that question with anguish. Tried to find an answer. There was none.

"I don't know, Bones. I just... I just don't know."

"You said you were the one who knew!"

"Bones, people watching," he whispered as he grabbed her to resume dancing.

This whole situation was a living hell. He took a deep breath.

"I couldn't help it. It's just.. I'm..." _I'm in effing love with you and it's killing me._ "I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

She felt he was trying to hold her at a distance from him, his hands barely touching her back. She had done it again. She had hurt him again. _I just wanna protect him. Why doesn't he want to understand that?_ _Who am I kidding, I'm trying to protect myself_. She drew closer, resting her cheek against his.

"I'm sorry, Booth." _For right now. For earlier. For… _

He chuckled, this bittersweet chuckle again.

"I know."

After a few seconds, both relaxed against each other, returning to that place without time or space. He tightened his grip, breathing her in without shame. _I gotta get over her_. She responded to his gesture by settling her head against his shoulder, the tip of her fingers digging onto the fabric of his suit. Clinging to him. _I can't lose him_.

He had not realized to what tune they were dancing until he heard the chorus. _Isn't it… Is that the Batman score? The crappy one with Robin and his iron tits?_ Soon the words became too tragically ironic for him. _You've gotta be fucking kidding me..._ He listened despite himself. _'You remain, my power, my pleasure, my pain. To me you're like a growing addiction I can't deny. Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby?'  
_  
Once more, he could not suppress a disbelieving chuckle to escape his lips.

"What?" she whispered as she looked up at him.

He could see she was panicking. This was going to be uncomfortable again. Painful. That possibility frightened her.

He gave her a reassuring smile.

"It's just... that song. I got a bad flashback of Robin with his iron tits, trying to gay up Batman."

She frowned, "What does that mean?"

"Don't tell me you never watched the _Batman_ movies?! I admit that _Batman Forever_ is an insult to the rest of the series, but still. Even_ I_ managed to see it when it came out, and I had spent most of the year in Bosnia!!"

"Bosnia? You never told me about that."

"You never asked," he said, cutting her off. He had not meant to sound harsh. Really. But that song would not stop hammering the pathetic tragedy of his life and he did not know if he could stand it much longer. _Great, now she's hurt._ "I never really told anyone, anyway."

_I'm not anyone. _

"You don't want to tell me?"

"You want to know?" he asked, unsure.

She nodded silently.

"There's not really much to say. It was my first deployment, we were working with international forces. There was a great deal of confusion. Our primary task was to protect the Air Force during their operations. Rescuing pilots, stuff like that."

"You were 22, right?"

"Yeah." _And I killed for the first time, but you don't want to know that_.

She knew it was painful for him to remember these years, but she was desperate to remain as far as possible from their initial, perpetual source of discomfort. The present, it seemed, was even more painful than the past right now. She had no idea that to him, it was one and only. His past led him to her, indubitably, mercilessly, as the song kept reminding him that she was the one who had shed a light on his life, six years before. A kiss from a rose... A blessing, tearing him apart with deadly thorns.

***

She kept staring out of the window on their way back to the hotel. The end of the evening had been like the beginning, incomprehensible. They had danced for what had seemed to be a long time. Enough time for them to be among the last persons on the dance floor. He had lapsed into silence soon after the evocation of his past, resuming his slow, soothing rocking movements with her. He had tried not to look at her, preferring to bury his nose in her hair. She had not forced her gaze on him, too scared that it would put an end to this fleeting sensation of peace. Now she could not help but wonder. They would not survive this. It was impossible. It was too heavy, too oppressing... Dolorous.

She knew she had broken them. Her undeniable responsibility in this destructive enterprise made her miserable. She could not even accuse him to have participated in this; she had made that choice, she had changed them because she was incapable of changing herself.

"We're changing," she said without looking at him. "Why can't I?"

It came out of nowhere. Well, no, it came out of her teeming brain. He had not found the courage to interrupt her train of thoughts since they had stepped into the car. Silence seemed easier, for the first time in his existence. Now he had to talk, and he had no idea of what to say.

"Changing is not easy." _Yeah, shut up Seeley._

"It seems easy for us, right now."

_Easy? Like the Way of Sorrows?_

"We're not changing, Bones."

She looked at him finally, disbelieving.

"We are. You won't look at me, you won't talk to me. You alternate disinterest and inexplicable tenderness."

She realized suddenly that her definition of 'we' was summarized in him alone. Maybe he had not noticed. _You wish_.

They could not have that conversation in a car. Well, they could not have this conversation anywhere. He sighed, weary.

"You need to understand that I can't pretend nothing happened. It happened and... I need to adjust. I try. It's not the easiest thing I've ever done, to be honest."

"How can I make it easier?" she asked, desperate. And quietly, too. So he wouldn't change his mind on still being willing to be her partner.

He smiled sympathetically.

"Just give me some time."

"I don't want to lose you," she whispered.

"You won't."

She nodded, breathing in. Desperately wanting to believe him. Desperately needing to trust every word he ever said. That was the heart of the matter. How could she ever stop doubting? She had learned to rely on hard evidence and nothing else. It had been a comfort in difficult times and ironically now it was the source of her misery. Before she realized it, she was wiping tears she did not know had formed. He caught her gesture instantly and stopped the car.

"Bones, you won't lose me. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere," he whispered in a soothing voice. A sweet comforting loving tone she did not deserve.

This was too much. The whole evening had been too much. This whole week, really. She burst into tears. He reacted instinctively, like he always had in the past. He took her in his arms, whispering unintelligible terms of endearment as she clung to him with the strength of despair.

"We're gonna be okay. I promise," he added, his lips pressed against her hair. He had no idea how he would keep that promise.

***

The remainder of their ride to the hotel was somehow more comfortable. Some of the pressure accumulated had waned after the incident. But she was still in desperate need to ask him more. More than not abandoning her. She did not want him to move on. But there was no wording it, no expressing it. She did not know how. She did not know if she deserved it. She knew she didn't.

As he made his way around the car to open her door, she observed him intently. He was trying harder than ever not to unsettle her with a new mood shift. He smiled, joked even. Did he love her that much? _Right from the beginning. _Her chest tightened when she remembered his words. _He never loses. He always knows. Why can't I trust him? It's me I don't trust. It's the ineffable injustice of life.  
_  
"Come on, Bones." he interjected, inviting her to step out of the vehicle. Thoughtful as ever.

She fought a surge of tenderness -he was not the only one acting inexplicably, it appeared.

When they stepped in, they saw familiar faces discussing with the clerk at the counter. It was one of the couples they had interrogated at the reunion. Booth and Bones stopped abruptly to exchange alarmed looks.

"What do we do?" she whispered.

"Follow me, alright?" he answered, as he grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Hey! That's the lovebirds!"

Bones frowned. She knew there was probably no _real_ birds around. When she saw Booth force out a laugh, she imitated him. They made their way to the counter, subconsciously holding onto each other for moral support. Leaving the reunion, they had thought the sham would cease. _Of course not.._.

"So you're staying here too?" Booth asked, faking interest in the former High School jock and his aging cheerleader.

"Yeah, it's a nice hotel. Lots of memories. We had our wedding reception here, before we moved to Chicago. Speaking of which... For how long you guys said you've been married?"

"Uh, five years."

"How do you do it?" the man exclaimed.

Bones realized he had probably enjoyed one or two too many drinks during the reunion. That did not diminish her discomfort.

"Do what?" she let out, before turning to her 'husband' for an explanation. Were they seriously asking them how they did _it_? Probably not, otherwise Booth would have squirmed already.

Before he could give her an answer, the man intervened.

"How you keep the magic alive like that after 5 years. I mean there were bets tonight on how long you would stay glued to each other on the dance floor..."

When Booth looked at his partner's expression, he was not surprised to see her half incredulous, half indignant. She was probably blocked on the "glued" part and was fighting her usual need to correct people with a tendency to use metaphors escaping her grasp. He smiled and said with a shrug,

"We manage."

"Well, we were not literally glued to each other, it would have necessitated the use of an adhesive mixture and..." she stopped, seeing Booth laughing. "What?"

"Nothing, honey." _I love you, that's all_. "Let's get to bed." With that he moved forward, addressing the clerk who was getting impatient. "We got a room under the name Booth."

The woman quickly checked her computer. "I have… two rooms under that name."

He let out a nervous chuckle.

"Well, maybe there are other Booths. Try Seeley Booth."

"Yes, that's it. Seeley Booth, two single rooms."

"That must be a mistake."

He rapidly checked on Bones to make sure she would not blow their cover in front of her former schoolmates. She was watching him, and, he noticed, she had grabbed his arm. He would think about that later. Returning his attention to the clerk, who was checking his reservation on her computer a second time, he feigned annoyance.

After a few seconds, the woman declared, "I'm sorry, Mr. Booth. The reservation was made on April 7th 2010, with a specific request for two single roo..."

He cut her off.

"Look! I made that reservation myself. I would remember if I had booked two rooms. I'm here with my wife, we don't need two rooms. I certainly won't pay the same room twice because of some reservation system failure."

The spectators of the scene all agreed on the legitimacy of his outburst, while Bones observed him with wonderment. She knew it was just pretense –again- but she could not help asking herself why he was so adamant to share her bedroom. _No, stupid. It's not about us. It's about _them.

After the clerk was forced to modify that 'mistake', the partners inherited of a key to one single room with a king sized bed. Both prepared for a restless night.

TBC...

-------------------

**How about that for angst, huh? Like it? Want more? I hope so, because there's a new chapter coming VERY soon. If you ask for it. Duh.**


	3. Let's Not Get Carried Away

**A.N.:** **Hey, it's still TLN for this chapter. Wow! 40 reviews? I'm amazed at your reaction guys, and very pleased at your comments! We both are! It is true that our 'association' appears like something fairly natural to us, since we are frighteningly alike lol! We're like Dale and Brennan in **_**Step-Brothers **_**:D. But more into BB than **_**Star Wars**_**, uh... Anyway, I hope you like this chapter, it's very... tensed lol. If you want more, let us know!!  
**  
**Disclaimer:****As usual. Fox evil soul sucker who produces kick ass unfulfilled love stories, etc...**

Chapter 3  
LET'S NOT GET CARRIED AWAY

He still believed in fate. In the sarcastic poking of an unapologetic destiny constantly there to remind him that there would never be any escaping her. He was literally trapped. They had learned with consternation that the former jock and his botoxed cheerleader were on their floor, and had maintained their cheerful faces for an interminable elevator ride. Well, interminable to him, at least. When he peered at his partner, confusion systematically took over. She was still clinging to him, and he had no idea of what it could mean. He, who could usually read into the smallest gesture, was paralyzed at her insanely unusual behavior.

He knew she was not trying anything in particular. Manipulation had never been her forte. More than that, he knew she was not the shrewd type; that was one of the reasons why he loved her. So what could it possibly mean? Not for an instant did he consider she could be doing this for their audience's sake. Her fingers were too tightly entwined with his own, her body too heavily resting against him. This was intimate. This was theirs.

When they finally reached their room, he instantly broke contact with her. She made a perplexed face before realizing that, after all, they had been doing nothing but faking for the past several hours. Disappointment washed over her. But she soon surrendered.

"I'm going to take a shower," she said, looking down.

"Sure. I'll just..." He pointed at the television.

He watched the bathroom door shut behind her and cursed himself. _We'll be okay? Yeah, right_.

***

Ten minutes later, she stepped out of the shower still wondering what she had done wrong. _Everything? Most likely_. She had thought the episode in the car had eased things a bit; that he would make more efforts to put up with her. _As though he is not making enough efforts already..._ She suddenly understood how he had felt when she had mercilessly rejected him. He must have felt like he was alone in the world. He must have felt like she was feeling just now. She would have to snap out of it sooner or later. Later.

She examined herself in the mirror -body and soul- nakedly exposed to her own dispassionate inspection. She could not understand how or why he had showed such remarkable patience with her over the years. She had made no efforts. None. He had always been the one showing her the way. _I tried... But it's so hard_. _How could he even fall in love with me?_

As she pondered over this unexplainable fact, she grabbed a cotton robe hanging close by. When she put it on, one of the sleeves hit the wedding ring she had forgotten on the sink. It instantly fell down the drain.

She sighed. _Dammit__!_

"Booth!" she called out.

She heard him approach, but her eyes remained fixed on the sink. Mesmerized by the possible significance of what had just happened. _Stop it, Temperance. There is no significance to it. It is purely coincidental_. She heard him stop right behind the door.

"You okay Bones? Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, can you come in, please?"

He entered, swallowing hard as he saw she was wearing a simple cotton robe... and that she was still wet. He could not prevent his eyes from wandering way below the acceptable limit.

"What's wrong?" he swallowed again, trying to catch his breath through the thick, hot, damped air.

"The ring fell down the drain," she stated matter-of-factly.

He had no idea why, but he felt pissed.

"Bones! Don't you know you're not supposed to just take your wedding ring off and put it on the sink?!"

"It's not like it was _my_ actual wedding ring! If you're that concerned about FBI property, don't worry, I'll reimburse them!"

Instinctively he crossed his arms, defensively.

"It's not about the FBI, it's about the ring!"

Now she was pissed too.

"So what? Now you're gonna lecture me about the symbolic sanctity of a loaned wedding ring?"

"You know what? Never mind."

As she watched him retreat to the bedroom, she felt lost and defeated. But soon, he called after her.

"Where's your flashlight?" he shouted.

She joined him and saw he was sifting through the contents of her bag. As much as she disliked anyone putting their paws on her personal belongings, knowing he was probably touching her most intimate pieces of clothing had a rather strange effect on her. An unexpected warmth spread in the pit of her stomach.

"Bones?" he looked up quizzically.

She straightened up.

"Uh, yeah it's in here. Wait."

She bent over her bag, searching for the flashlight, and failed to realize that in doing so, she was exposing her breasts.

"Here." She frowned, seeing Booth had turned bright red. "Booth?"

He cleared his throat.

"Yeah, thanks."

With that he seized the flashlight and raced back towards the bathroom. She grimaced. _What now? What did I do? _She followed him_._

"Do you need help?" she tried a cheerful tone, shifting on her feet. _Awkward_.

"Hold that," she heard him say from below.

He was already half-hidden under the sink. Not that he needed her help, but he had an entirely different view of her now and he did not know how long it would take for his body to react accordingly.

She knelt beside him and grabbed the flashlight he was handing to her. _So it wasn't really necessary to rip it off my hands thirty seconds ago_…

"You want me to turn it on?" she asked innocently.

He choked, "What?"

"The flashlight."

_Of course. There's not much more to turn on right now, anyway._

"Sure."

He tried to appear casual, but it was nearly impossible. He was fighting an inexplicably clingy Bones and, even more than that, he was fighting his urge to reach for that soft, glittering skin that was so ruthlessly tempting him. Hellish paradise, or heavenly hell, he could not decide just then.

After a few minutes of dexterous plumbing, Booth succeeded in recovering the ring. Before he could catch it, it rolled behind him.

"Shit," he cursed.

Bones reacted instantly, bending forward to catch it and pressing herself against Booth in the process. He could not suppress a groan. _She's gonna kill me_. He could feel her naked thigh against his own. If she shifted her weight slightly, she would be on top of him. _Holy mother of God..._ No Saints could help him now.

She felt his warmth against her skin, and her insides pounded in response. She swallowed. Before she knew it, he had pushed her to get up and bumped his head against the sink.

"Ouch!"

She reached for him, concerned.

"You alright?"

"I am, don't worry."

As irrational as it seemed, she was really worried. Anything simply grazing his skull frightened her ever since his brain surgery. He knew it; that's why he tried not to show any sign of annoyance, or frustration, rather.

"Let me check," she said, tentatively reaching for his head.

He stepped back, "Just, stop… touching me."

She was hurt, clearly. He had seen that face many times in the past, too many times. Yet he had always done his utmost not to be responsible for it. Until now.

He sighed, "Bones, I'm sorry. That came out the wrong way. I just meant...."

She cut him off, harshly, "It's alright. I understand."

And she headed for the bedroom without a look for him. What had she been thinking? That a hug in a car would solve all their issues? She felt stupid. _But he promised._

Once again, he watched a door shut behind her, and once more, he cursed himself.

***

It was 3 in the morning. They were lying as far as possible from one another, leaving a large, empty spot in the middle of the king sized bed. Yet that physical distance did not appease either of them. They were both wide awake, but incapable of making the slightest move. They had not talked after the incident. Bones had feigned to be asleep when Booth had exited the bathroom, and since then, she had reviewed all the events of the evening.

He had acted irrationally, that was the least she could say. But then again, she knew it was her fault. He needed time, she understood that. But what was_ she_ supposed to do? Nothing seemed appropriate. The awkwardness of physical distance was not replaceable by the constant tension of each touch. Of course, she had always been attracted to him. _Right from the beginning. _But now everything seemed different. Complicated. Each look seemed more meaningful, each gesture had to be weighted. Worse than that, the contradiction brought forth by this evening of pretense had made her painfully aware of what he had to offer.

She realized he would offer all of it, someday, to someone else. Someone who would deserve it and give him the same thing in return. Someone who would not doubt him, or his faith in her, in them. Someone who would not fear to lose control over personal happiness. Someone who wouldn't be terrified to crush his heart. It did not matter how much she wanted him; he was simply too much for her.

She looked at him. His eyes were closed, but she could tell he was awake. His breathing was uneven and he was standing much too still. She ached to touch him.

"You awake?" she whispered, wondering why she had opened her mouth.

"Yeah. You?"

She made a disbelieving face and stated, "I'm talking..."

"You could be talking in your sleep," he answered, eyes still shut.

"I don't do that."

"Yes, you do," he chuckled.

She frowned, "How do you know?"

He smiled, finally looking at her. Then she remembered. All the nights they had spent together in the past. She remembered. All the mornings when she had woken up in his arms, with the excuse of sleep to justify her presence there. Those memories revived the warm pounding in her lower stomach. She shut her eyes tightly. _Breath in, breath out_.

After ten minutes of unsuccessful breathing exercises, she gave up.

"Booth..."

"Yeah..."

He had not been any more successful than her at calming the effects those same memories had on him. Not to mention the ever present image of her body barely covered by a cotton robe.

"I'm too aroused to sleep."

"Oh dear God..." he groaned, while covering his head with his pillow.

She took it as a sign of disapprobation, and instantly attempted to justify her blunt confession.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it!" she exclaimed. "I guess my body is still responding to the hormones I secreted earlier this evening, when we were pretending to be married..."

_Wanna hear about _my_ body responding to hormones?_

"You know what, maybe we should just try not to speak," he said, frustration clearly showing in his tone and firmly indicated by the way he threw his pillow across the bedroom.

She nodded, defeated. A disagreeable sensation of vexation invaded her. For an instant she felt foolish to have confessed such a thing only to receive that answer. The ironic similarity of this situation and that encountered the previous week did not occur to her. She was too busy trying to understand how she could be so completely and utterly responsive to him while he was being indifferent.

Another five minutes passed before she could not longer repress her need to ask him. She needed to know. She needed him to say it out loud. Why was this so easy for him?

"Booth..."

"Yeah..." he was now clearly annoyed with her.

She felt it, but it did not stop her.

"You're not aroused by me?" As soon as the words escaped her lips, doubts started pouring in. Why did she have to keep pushing him? And why was he looking at her like this?

He stared at her an instant, bewildered. _Is she fucking kidding?! _Then seeing the earnestness of her expression, he sighed and took her hand to place it on his crotch. Feeling his intense arousal, she gasped, and instantly removed her hand. Blushing.

"Satisfied?"

_No!_

"Yes," she whispered shyly.

As they fell back in a particularly uncomfortable silence, Booth's mind couldn't stop racing. There was _pushing_ her and then, there was _PUSHING_ her. And himself. He had promised her. He had promised they would be okay. How was he supposed to keep that promise if all he could do was to sabotage them every chance he got?

Each time she remembered the sensation of vigor she had felt under her fingers, she swallowed. And each time he heard her swallow, his painful spot would throb harder -literally.

Another five minutes passed.

Both could feel the other stiffen with each movement they made. The very sheets seemed tensed.

"Booth..."

He sighed, "What?"

"I think it's perfectly natural."

"No. No way I'm getting a biology lesson right now."

"No!" she said quickly. "It's… Well, you haven't dated in a while, and all evening we've been playing perfect couple and maybe we could…" While she knew exactly what she was trying to say, she couldn't phrase it properly. She had already told him some years ago that she was there, as an option, for him to satisfy his biological urges. But that sounded wrong. Because she knew now. She understood. To have his body, to share this with him, she'd have to give her soul. And she had no idea how. She didn't know how. But why couldn't he just use her right now and take whatever he could from her? Hell, they had been pretending all evening and they'd still have to pretend tomorrow… Why couldn't they pretend right now and have sex? Just forget everything and… "Since we've kept pretending all evening…You could… I mean, _I_ could… You could have sex with…"

He interrupted her harshly, uncertain of what she meant. Unsure he really wanted to know. Did she really think he was _that_ great of an actor?

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me, Bones, right?"

Jumping out of bed, he started to put on his clothes in a hurry.

She sat up and watched him, silent. Lips tightly sealed together. Scared of breathing another wrong thing. Scared this was it.

"I did not 'pretend', okay?" he continued. "That was me! The fucking masochistic moron, trying to hold onto a fictive version of what I want for us!"

He grabbed his leather jacket.

"I don't know if I can do this," he murmured only to himself.

But she heard.

And as he started for the door, she desperately called after him.

"Where are you going?"

"I need air," he replied without turning back. _And maybe I'll have sex on the way. That would be your solution, right?_

This time the door closed on her.

She felt miserable. Well, at least she had her answer. What she had thought to be pretense, a cover-up for the sake of their investigation, had been nothing but the pathetic game of two messed-up losers.

_No, _I'm_ the loser_, she thought. _What I just did… That's precisely why he deserves better than me_.

***

When he came back, he saw she had fallen asleep. He could hear her quiet snoring from across the room. He smiled. He had spent the last thirty minutes pacing around the block, cursing her, himself and existence at large. But he had come back, realizing that he had let his frustration take over his good sense.

She was so utterly innocent. Watching her right then, fragile, soft, he could not deny it. She was a woman with the heart of a child. With the fears of a child. He had never ignored it, especially not when he had decided it was time for him to confess his feelings. He had gambled. The odds were against him and he had lost.

Could he ever settle for a woman with a woman's heart? He had spent the past five years in the presence of an angel, a paradox. She fascinated him, infuriated him. How could he ever expect to find someone remotely close to what she quintessentially represented? She had awoken the protector in him while managing to silence the conqueror. She had revealed the individual force in him, while offering him a family. She had become his identity. How could he even think he could settle for less than that now?

He had no doubt, even after all this mess. They were made for each other. It was even more true now than it had been when he had first saw her, and instantly fallen in love. Every parcel of her matched him in a perfect way. But she was not ready for it. She was not ready to trust him yet. He had thought she was, or he had been weary to wait. Whatever the reason that had pushed him to cross the line, he knew he could not hold her responsible of his rejection. He should have known better. That was all.

He silently undressed, put on his pajama bottoms and climbed into bed. She reacted to his presence with a slight moan of protest. He smiled again, drawing closer. If he could not word an apology, he felt the need to hold her close, to let her know that he would not abandon her. No matter how incommensurable the task appeared.

Suddenly his breath got stuck. There, on her left hand, was the wedding ring she had set on the dresser before going to bed. She had put it back on while he was outside, fumbling with his poker chip.

_She probably didn't want to lose it again__,_he vaguely tried to convince himself. This vision. Her. Sleeping next to him, in complete surrender. Her left hand, fingers slightly curled up, touching her delicate nose. It felt so familiar. So real.

He knew it was completely safe right where it was, on the bedside table next to his badge. But he reached for it anyway. And he slipped it on his finger.

He buried his nose in her hair, and his lips grazed her neck. Pretending... _Just pretending that she's mine_.

**TBC...**

* * *

Next up… he has to start the 'moving on' process, right? This is just unhealthy. I really hope you're all in for the long haul!!! 'Cause this is actually amazingly juicy!

Thanks for making our efforts worth it. I don't need to buy your review with promises, do I?

Please, for Annick's sake, don't bash Brennan too harshly? :( She's sad, too, you know?


	4. Let's Find Us Again

**A.N.:**** This is Annick writing this chapter... I really hope you all enjoy our take on things. Some more angst, some more emotional tailspins, some more delicious sexual tension... And things will get worse before they get better. So BUCKLE UP!**

Chapter 4  
LET'S FIND US AGAIN

Brennan didn't really like the expression 'getting back to your real life'. Life's always real. Or it's supposed to be, anyway. But as much as she refused to word it that way, it was exactly what she felt when Booth parked his car in front of her apartment building.

"Thanks," she said, getting out of the vehicle.

She opened the back door to get her bags and her computer. Her hands were full and she struggled for a second, wondering how she'd get her keys. Without even a thought, Booth took the heaviest bag from her and led the way to her front door.

They had barely arrived in Washington when Angela had called them to tell them they were all waiting for them at The Founding Fathers. Though both very tired, they had gone straight to the bar. Brennan had realized she was truly happy to be surrounded by all those people. People who cared. People who didn't judge her. And she would probably still have been smiling if the uneasy silence between Booth and her hadn't resurfaced as soon as they entered her apartment.

She motioned for him to drop the bag near the couch and watched him say, "There you go." His smile didn't reach his eyes.

She followed him as he walked back to the door. She didn't want him to leave yet. She didn't ask herself why.

"Thanks again for..."

"No problem," he said before she even finished.

"... the slow dance."

Her words hit the emptiness around them. She looked down and bit her lips.

"I know it wasn't easy for you. Thanks for doing this for me. It meant a lot."

When she looked at him again, his hands were shoved in his pockets and he was shrugging.

"I'm glad you had fun," he said.

She took one tentative step towards him. Why did she need to push it?

"You uhm... You want another drink? It's still early," she said, realizing how tired she really was.

An overwhelming wave of sadness hit Booth. He was totally drained of everything he had. He was way too tired to pretend he was fine. To pretend she wasn't driving him crazy with her incessant apologies and her fucking habit of licking her lips.

"No," he let out, dryly. But of course, he couldn't just leave it at that. To soften the blow, he added, "I really should go home," squinting.

He watched her nod slowly take a deep breath.

"I feel very lucky," she said.

"So you said. Three time, at the bar."

He really did try to smile, but he didn't feel lucky right now. He felt... tired of feeling.

_Right. I should shut up now,_ she told herself before adding, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Her tiny, pleading voice was enough to crush him. That, and her batting eyelashes. This was the second time he had heard this tone coming from her. And both times, it had come with an overpowering sense of guilt. He could not leave her this way.

S_hit,_ he sighed inwardly. But his voice was very soft when he murmured, "You gotta stop doing that," pleading in return.

When she felt the sting of tears reach her eyes for the millionth time in just a few days, she sighed out of frustration. She was probably suffering from a hormonal imbalance. She felt as though she had done nothing but cry for no reason this weekend.

"I'm sorry," she brushed off. "It's just this whole High School thing and... I'm tired..."

She didn't even bother to finish. Booth seemed concerned enough. She tried to laugh at herself. She couldn't let him feel this way. But trying so hard to pretend she was feeling alright just made matters worse.

"Hey..." he whispered, stepping closer to her.

It just wasn't fair. He was the one who had gotten hurt. By her. It made no sense for him to let her lean on him again and again and again. But he couldn't help it.

He held out his arms and gestured, "Come here."

She couldn't move. She looked at his chest, urging, _physically_ hurting to snuggle against him. But she rapidly shook her head 'no'.

"Come on," he insisted, tilting his head.

"Booth," she let out, stuck in place. "We both know this wouldn't be a guy hug and... Considering everything that happened, it's not fair. I know how difficult this is for you." _And you have no idea how difficult it is for me._

"It's really not," he confessed, surprised at how true it was.

She locked eyes with him. She hated herself for what she was putting him through. He would realize some day just how bad she was for him. Maybe they needed a break. Maybe some time apart would be beneficial. She couldn't figure out why she needed him to reassure her every five seconds. They had opened a door, as he put it, and now she had no idea what they were supposed to do. She had lost every marker. Everything was slipping through her fingers and she didn't know how to hold on. She didn't know what she could hold on to. She didn't know if she had the right to. But this was_ her_ problem. _Her_ screwed up self. It was _her_ turmoil, and she couldn't drag him into it. She would have to stop.

_Just one more time,_ she told herself, about to accept his comforting arms. But he had dropped them to his sides. He had taken it back.

Neither of them knew what to say. And so Booth turned around and opened the door.

She gave up, too and walked to the couch to empty one of her bags. To sort it out. _You're lucky. You're lucky he still wants to work with you. Just be grateful._

When she didn't hear the door close behind him, she looked. He was still there, shifting on his feet.

"You ok?" she asked, curious. Her heart started pounding. She was scared. She didn't believe in jinxes, but...

"Yeah, uhm..." He cleared his throat, massaged the back of his neck and then pointed to her with his free hand. "I just... need your ring back."

"Oh."

Her left thumb immediately went to touch the diamond still on her fourth finger. Her eyes searched his left hand. No ring.

"Right," she said with a chuckle. "I didn't realize I was still wearing it." She felt her cheeks flush.

"See? I told you you'd get used to it," he laughed, walking up to her.

"Yeah," she whispered to herself.

With an irrational pinch of regret, she pulled on the ring. Booth's eyes on her were making her self-conscious. She rotated the ring on her finger and pulled again. It wouldn't come off. She chuckled nervously. And tried again. Harder. _OUCH._

"I can't," she mumbled, now more embarrassed than anything.

Booth closed the gap between them and held out his hand.

"Here... Let me."

"No!" said yelped, turning her back to him, as if she didn't want him to see her struggle with this stupid piece of jewellery. "I can do it. I just need some liquid soap."

She walked straight to the kitchen, still trying to take it off. Cursing herself. Cursing the stupid timing of everything. Her finger was really starting to hurt.

_Unbelievable!_

She had rarely felt that foolish. She was out of liquid soap. Maybe if she tried some shampoo or some petroleum jelly... She tried one last time on her own, pissed and feeling like her knuckle was about to burst.

"I can't believe this!" she groaned, frustrated.

She turned around again, almost bumping into Booth.

"Stop," he said calmly, pushing her right hand away. "You'll hurt yourself."

_So what?_

"I'm fine!" she protested. "I'm stuck. I'm..."

She went to try again, but Booth took her hand. His heart stopped at the sight. Her finger was all red. He sighed.

Brennan blinked rapidly when her stomach fluttered. His large hands wrapped around hers. His gentle touch, trying to soothe her skin. She breathed in discretely and looked away. Maybe he was being nice to her on purpose. So she'd feel bad. Maybe she hadn't apologized enough.

"I'm sorry," she breathed out. For this. For that. For everything. Again.

"It's alright," he laughed. "I'm sure you didn't make the ring shrink on purpose."

But when his eyes met hers, his light expression darkened. She wasn't apologizing for that, it seemed.

His eyes were sad again, and it killed her one more time. She had broken him, hadn't she? She tried to lift the mood.

"The ring didn't shrink, Booth. My finger swelled," she stated, bringing her attention back to their hands.

"Are you sure, because..." He tried to pull on it as gently as he could, to no avail. "...it really won't come off."

"It's ok." She took her hand back. "I'll put some ice on it; the cold will help to get the swelling down..."

"I know a trick that's faster," he said before he could stop himself.

She looked up at him.

"I'd rather you didn't cut my finger off," she explained.

He chuckled.

"Something a little less drastic..." he lingered, waiting for her to give him her hand again.

She looked at his palm in front of her. She chewed for a second the inside of her cheek, and finally surrendered to him.

She waited. Booth seemed to be hesitating. She looked up at him.

"What?"

"Just... don't look. At me, I mean."

She frowned, about to take her hand back.

"Why? Is this gonna hurt?"

His eyebrows rose in surprise.

"Would I ever hurt you?" he asked.

_Probably._ She chased the thought out of her system and sighed. After one last look into his convincing stare, she shut her eyes tightly, wrinkling her nose in the process.

Booth couldn't help but smile at how cute she was. Then he remembered what he was about to do and swallowed with difficulty. He fixed his eyes on her face and let his heart beat as fast as it needed to.

Warm. Almost hot. Moist. Wet. Soft. Brennan's eyes flew open and instantly locked with his, still on her. A gasp escaped her lips as she tried to breathe. His lips were wrapped around her finger; his teeth were grazing her skin behind the ring. His tongue, almost sensual, was slowly dancing up, down and around her finger. His gaze was intense. Primal. Sexual.

Maybe he wanted to test her. Maybe he wanted to test himself. Maybe he was just a moron. But he was enjoying seeing her gasp for air, her lips almost trembling. Her chest heaved up, pressing her breast against her tight shirt. Booth didn't even try to fight the tension gathering up in his lower abdomen.

He knew she knew. The ring was easily moving now. Yet he kept brushing the skin of her finger with his teeth, pulling her finger out of his mouth very slowly, pulling the ring off way too softly. Until her finger was finally free.

He let go of her hand to take the ring out of his mouth, and she brought her wet finger behind her back, like ashamed of having enjoyed every single millisecond of this torture.

"That was good," she whispered. But as soon as the words came out of her mouth, she winced. His head jerked up so he could look at her. "_Effective_, I mean. It worked."

Booth dried the ring with the hem of his shirt.

"Yeah," he said on a joking tone. "I'm a man of many talents."

_Ok. Let's not go there tonight._

Shook up more than he'd care to admit, Booth almost dropped the ring. He laughed out loud, for no reason, and handed it back to her.

"Here," he said.

She instantly stepped back, as if he had been handing her the most dangerous weapon ever created.

"You... No. You needed it back," she corrected him.

"Right."

He stepped back, too, almost losing his balance, almost hitting the table behind him. He dropped the ring in his pocket and clapped his hands once before rubbing them together.

"Ok! See you tomorrow!" he let out, entirely focused on getting out of there.

She was still licking her lips and holding her ring finger when the door closed behind him.

***

She hadn't seen him for three days when a body finally showed up, requiring their collaboration. He hadn't called her to tell her like he usually did; she had just arrived at work that morning, and the remains were already waiting for her. Surprised? Yes. Taken aback? Sure. Confused? You bet.

Here she was, desperately trying to hold on to their partnership, and he was suddenly acting like he didn't care. At first, she thought she was overreacting. Then, she tried calling him, twice, only to reach his voicemail. But what made her absolutely sure that something was definitely off happened later that afternoon.

"Someone should call Booth to tell him we got an ID," Cam said.

Brennan was about to tell her boss that Booth had been unreachable all day, when Angela said,

"Oh, I just did. He said he's on his way."

The anthropologist turned to her best friend, trying not to sound so surprised.

"You did? You _talked_ to him? When?" she inquired.

"Yes, about 21.3 seconds ago," Angela laughed.

Brennan excused herself and, on her way to her office, she took her cell phone out of her lab coat pocket and dialled his number again. Nothing. No answer. _Ok. You can't jump to conclusions. You need all the facts, first._ Before she even got to her office, she turned around and walked back to the forensics platform.

"Ange, may I borrow your phone? It'll only take a second."

The artist handed it to her, slightly concerned.

"Is everything ok, Brennan?"

_I'll know in a second..._ She dialled his number from Angela's phone, turning around for some privacy, plugging her other ear with her finger. And sure enough, a very annoyed Booth answered.

"No, I can't go any faster, Angela. It's called a traffic jam. _Jam. _Like _jelly_. Meaning very, very thick and sticky. I'll be there as soon as I can, ok?"

"Good to know," Brennan spat into the phone.

Booth's heart stopped and he would have probably slammed on the breaks if his vehicle had been moving at all.

"Bones?" he checked.

But she had hung up.

_Dammit._

The steering wheel took a direct hit. Or two.

Brennan practically shoved the phone back into her friend's hands.

"What's wrong?" Angela asked, almost whispering.

"I'll be in my office if you need me," she answered instead.

She was furious when she finally reached her desk. She paced around for a minute before willing herself to calm down. She pursed her lips together and stared in front of her. He had told her over and over again that they would be fine. This was not fine. She had tried her best to try to act normal. She couldn't help but be angry with him. This was precisely why she had decided not to go there. _Them_. It was the only thing that had ever made complete sense in her life. It was the _one _thing she could always count on. No matter how much they argued, no matter how stubborn they were, no matter how badly they got on each other's nerves... at the end of the day, they would still be _them._ But they had shifted. And how was she supposed to get them back on track if he didn't help her? She couldn't do this on her own.

She was still staring into nothingness, ignoring all the files on her desk that needed her attention, when Booth came in.

She thought she'd still be mad when he'd get here. In fact, she tried to find that anger. But it was gone. All she felt was... alone. Completely alone.

"Great job on ID-ing the victim, Bones. We already got a warrant for the..."

Really? He was going to ignore the fact that he had been avoiding her? She interrupted him, but her voice was calm.

"When I asked you if we could still work together, you really didn't want to say yes, did you?"

Booth took in the initial shock of her bluntness. Why did she have to go there again? When would she understand that he was trying his best to act normal? He sighed.

"But I did say yes. And I meant it. I _mean_ it," he repeated in the correct verb tense. "Look. As much as it sucked being rejected, I'm sure it wasn't thrilling to do the rejecting either."

Her face showed him astonishment, like he had just revealed something she didn't already know.

She got up and started circling her desk to reach him when she realized this would be easier with furniture between them. So she stayed still.

"I didn't reject you," she refuted with an insisting tone, shaking her head.

Booth snorted faintly.

"Felt like you did," he said.

"No!" She needed him to understand. She needed him to see. "I explained... poorly, maybe, but you need to know... It's not like I don't feel anything."

She felt so much, in fact, that she didn't even know what was what anymore. She studied his features to see if he was really listening.

There he was again. Grasping at her every word. Sifting through them. Filtering them. And ultimately always finding it. Finding what killed him every time. What held him back: hope. She would tell him to go to Hell that he would manage to suck up some hope from it. This was never going to help anyone. And definitely not himself. He was a man, for God's sake. A real man. Strong. Stronger than this piece of fuckingly helpless little boy standing in front of her. So he dismissed it.

"Ok," he said, looking around her office, "at some point, we're gonna have to stop talking about this."

"I know..." she murmured.

_You know!? _He wiped his face with his hand. _Stop saying you know! You _don't _know. You don't _wanna_ know._

"...Booth, listen..."

"No," he cut her off. "You know what? I'm gonna make it easy on us. I take it back."

Brennan's heart jumped in her chest.

"What?" she croaked. "You can't do that!"

"Why not?" He raised his hands. "It's done. I took it back. Never happened."

And on that note, already regretting it, he ran out of there.

Brennan watched him leave, frozen in place, agape. _That's what you wanted, right? So things would go back to how they were? Congratulations on your success, Dr. Brennan._

***

Angela had studied her best friend all day long. Something big had happened. Something she didn't even want to think about. How did she know? Simple. When Brennan had something on her mind, her perfect scientific vocabulary went to hell. And when Brennan had stumbled on a word that even she could pronounce –'metacarpal', see?- there were no more doubts. They needed to talk.

So after work, she pretended to need her approval on her most recent facial reconstruction and trapped her in her office.

Brennan felt something was up as soon as Angela closed the door behind them.

"Sit," Angela ordered.

Brenna rolled her eyes.

"Ange..."

"I said, sit."

And so she did while Angela sat on her desk.

"Talk."

"To say what?"

But this wasn't going to work today. Angela tilted her head, serious as ever, and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I don't care how long we sit here, but we are going to talk about it."

"About what?"

"About whatever's about to make you cry."

Brennan brought her hands to her lap and sat up straighter. She was not going to cry again.

Silence. Angela unfolded her arms and leaned forward, lowering her voice.

"Talk to me. I'm here."

"I really don't know where to begin. Maybe if you asked me questions..."

"Did something happen between you and Booth?"

Brennan's throat tightened.

"Define 'something'," she managed to blurt out.

"No. _You_ define 'something'."

Brennan felt stuck. If she started talking about it, she wouldn't be able to stop. But she took a deep breath and tried to stay objective. She tried not to relive everything.

"Booth said... he wanted us to try to be together."

She waited for her friend's reaction, which didn't come. Maybe she hadn't understood.

"_Together _together. He said he wanted to take a chance and... He said he knew from the beginning and that he wanted us to..."

But her friend still wasn't reacting.

Angela tried to remain as composed as possible. As much as she wanted to yell 'FINALLY!', she knew this wasn't a happy ending.

"Ange? You don't look surprised," Brennan remarked.

"Should I be?" the artist said.

"He kissed me, too," she added.

"And you said no," Angela guessed.

Brennan started to frown before she said,

"And that doesn't surprise you either." She sighed and got up. "So can I leave now?" she asked.

Angela stayed put. Her gaze followed her friend who was not even close to the door and she realized she still wanted to talk.

"I'm sorry, Brennan," she huffed.

Stunned, Brennan looked at her friend.

"For what?"

Angela went and took her by the shoulders.

"You're hurting," she whispered.

Brennan's voice got stuck. "No! I'm fine. He's... He's the one who got hurt... I'm..." Until no words could come out anymore.

Angela gently pressed her arms.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, feeling her pain.

Brennan stopped shaking her head no when the first and only tear escaped her eyes. She took yet another deep breath and brushed everything off.

"He took it back anyway, so... It really doesn't matter."

_What??_

Angela's steady and soothing voice reached her ears.

"You know that no matter what he says now, he can't take it back, right?"

Brennan shrugged.

_I don't know anything anymore._

***

Angela found Booth in her office. She didn't bother to knock.

"We need to talk," she spat out.

He instantly knew this was not going to be a pleasant conversation. He rolled his eyes before she even began to talk and sat back in his chair, waiting for it.

"You waited all those years for the right moment to tell her how you feel... and when you finally do, you go with 'Let's take a chance' and 'Let's try'?! What is _wrong_ with you?"

Booth wasn't even going to respond to that. He grabbed his baseball and squeezed it over and over again. He wasn't going to discuss any of this with her.

Angela wasn't done.

"What did you expect her to say? Did you _want_ her to turn you down so you would not have to try? Oh! And then you take it back? Who does that?! You're a coward, Booth." She pointed a finger at him. "And I say that with the utmost platonic affection. You're a freaking coward."

Booth had listened anyway. He knew all that already. She had missed the part about how he had told her that he knew. That he just knew. But in the end, it didn't matter. Everything she had said was true.

"I know," he said.

"And... what?" Angela stopped moving completely. She had never seen that side of Booth before. So... completely wrecked.

He threw his head back and stared at the ceiling.

"I know," he repeated in a low, self-deprecating voice.

What had Brennan done to the poor guy? She wasn't yelling at the right person, was she?

***

Booth reached the top of the stairs to the platform in two long steps. He checked around, making sure they were not going to be interrupted. He refrained from thinking she was gorgeous, and concentrated on being mad.

"You told Angela about us," he stated. It almost sounded like an accusation.

Brennan stopped what she was doing and looked up at him.

"I... I didn't know I wasn't supposed to," she explained. "You never said it was a secret."

Booth shook his head.

"It's none of her business, that's all. I thought... maybe, that _this_ was important enough to keep between us."

"Booth..."

"No, it's fine. Really."

She grabbed his arm and forced him to listen.

"If I can't talk to Angela, I have no one to talk to!"

"Well, neither do I!" he almost shouted.

They stood there, together. So alone.

"Excuse me?" a voice said.

They both turned towards it at the same time.

"Hi."

A few clicks of heels on the stairs, and she was next to them. Brennan instantly straightened her back to stand taller. But one look at Booth, who was now smiling, and she felt invisible.

"I'm Dr. Catherine Bryar. I think you were expecting me."

* * *

**Ok... you all hate us. I know. I know. PLEASE don't give up. We promise this is going to be awesome. Please??**

**Are you put off by the different writing styles? Does it still make sense to you? You need a sedative? Just say something and the next chapter will be here soon. Hot. BB Hot. (I'm NOT teasing you, it's the truth.)**


	5. Let's Get Something Straight

**A.N.: ****Here we are again, just for you. Thanks for your constant support!! And please read slowly, it took me/us forever to write. :)**

Chapter 5  
LET'S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT

The third time Brennan heard him laugh at something she said, she didn't look at them. She had seen enough. And if _they_ didn't want to work, she still had remains to identify. She aimed the light in a better angle and tried to bring her coworkers' attention on the depth difference between the two marks.

Booth, Dr. Bryar and Andrew were standing on the other side of the platform. Close enough to bother everyone, but far enough so she couldn't hear what they were saying. She really tried her best to focus on the task at hand, but when Andrew started laughing at her witty remarks too, she had to focus on staying calm instead. _She's not _that_ funny._

Gathered behind her, Wendell, Hodgins, Angela and Cam were trying not to talk too loudly. She could have pretended she thought they were respecting the quiet environment she needed to concentrate, but she knew they just didn't want anyone else to hear them.

"For a long time, I've considered becoming a marine biologist," Wendell said.

Angela crossed her arms over her chest.

"And it's been a long time since I've given up on having that perfect ass," she commented, raising her eyebrows.

Hodgins didn't wait to add on a whisper, "She looks ready to eat him alive!"

Cam instantly noticed Brennan clutching to the light a little too tightly and knew she probably wasn't looking at the remains anymore. And so she said,

"Is this observation day or can we get back to work?"

Instantly relieved, Brennan looked over her shoulder and saw her boss give her the slightest nod before leaving the platform. She then risked glancing one more time over at Booth, but quickly looked down again when she noticed he was coming her way.

"We're heading out to lunch, Bones. You coming?"

"No," she replied lightly. "I'd really like to finish this as soon as possible. But you go ahead."

"Alright then."

Brennan saw the way the marine biologist smiled at her partner, but what hit her most was the way he smiled back. When Booth turned to Andrew, she suddenly lost all interest in the bones that were in front of her.

"Assistant director Hacker, wanna join us?"

Brennan looked at him, holding her breath for his answer.

"No, I'm alright, thanks. You two enjoy your lunch."

Brennan opened her mouth, but realized she had nothing to say. So she watched Booth leave. With her. And quickly turned to Andrew again.

"Are you sure you don't want to go with them?"

"I'm sure. I don't particularly enjoy feeling like the third wheel," he said.

Brennan was pretty sure she didn't want to fully understand that statement. She pressed on.

"I think you should go with them. I mean, you have to eat, right?"

"Oh, I'll grab something at the cafeteria. Don't worry about me," he retorted with a grin.

Brennan knew her smile was stiff. She looked at the glass door where they had left a few seconds ago. And it dawned on her: this was going to be a very long case.

***

Angela had been very quiet around her all day. Normally, Brennan wouldn't have picked up on it, or she would have let it go without bringing it up, but today...

So when she brought her friend the skull to digitize, she hung around longer than necessary, sure that Angela would ask her if something was bothering her. But she didn't. She immediately sat at her desk and got to work.

Brennan was about to leave when she changed her mind.

"Ange..."

The artist looked up.

"Are you mad at me?" she asked hesitantly. "Because I find myself uncomfortable around you today and I can't figure out why."

She added a faint smile. Hopefully she was reading everything wrong again. But Angela sighed and put the pen she was holding down on her pad of paper.

"I'm not mad, no," she replied softly. She tilted her head, visibly worried she would choose the wrong words. "I'm just..."

Brennan waited anxiously.

"No, I should stay out of this," Angela changed her mind. "It's none of my business."

"That never stopped you before," Brennan pointed out.

"Right," Angela laughed. "Ok, honestly?..." She circled her desk, unable to say it.

"This is about Booth, right?" Brennan verified although she knew the answer. And she shifted on her feet as her friend broke eye contact.

"I wasn't going to say anything, because I know you're hurting too. But..." She stopped, already regretting what she hadn't said yet. Honesty was the best policy. But with Brennan, emotional honesty rarely went well. She jumped anyway. "You told him no, Brennan."

Angela watched her friend bit her lips and shut her eyes. She continued,

"So I think you should let him do whatever he feels like doing with... whomever he feels like doing it with."

Brennan tried to ignore the pressure in her chest.

"You're talking about sex?" she checked.

"I'm talking about all of it."

Angela refrained from reaching out to touch her arm.

"I think it's good that he's putting himself out there," she added.

Brennan quickly replied, "I never said the contrary! I barely even said a word to her. Why would you think I'm against this?"

"Sweetie, if a look could kill, you'd be in big trouble right now."

"I don't understand," the anthropologist frowned.

"I know. Look..." Angela explained. "You're my best friend and I love you more than you know, but... If I had to pick a side, I'd have to go with Booth on this one. I'm sorry."

Brennan's throat became tight. She didn't need Angela to tell her she had no right to be jealous. She knew that. That's what she was trying to say, right? And now what? She had pushed Booth away and her best friend too, at the same time? Ok. Maybe she did deserve that. But...

Her voice was very soft when she spoke again.

"I understand," she said. "Even I trouble explaining my reasoning. But... You should know, I'm siding with Booth, too."

She gave Angela a sad smile and turned around to leave.

The artist watched her friend go. Her heart broke for her. And yet there wasn't anything she could do to help.

***

She had always been strong. She had always avoided pain as much as humanly possible. She had always been able to cut herself from everything. And yet, there she was, at the Jeffersonian, upstairs, filling paperwork all by herself that night, looking at the uneaten half of Thai food on the table. She realized she had difficulty compartmentalizing. This wasn't supposed to be so hard. She couldn't wait until that morning when she'd wake up feeling like herself again.

***

She knew he was there, in her office, before she even saw him.

"Hey, Bones! They need us back to the aquarium again," he said, waiting by the doorway.

"_Us_, as in, you and me?" she checked.

Booth laughed.

"Of course! What other _us_ is there?"

She held back a smile, suddenly feeling giddy, and grabbed her bag.

"Catherine said she'd meet us there," he dropped, walking past her.

Her bag suddenly felt heavier and it slowed down her pace. _So, it's _Catherine_ now?_

"Ok," she said.

Booth picked up on her tone and looked at her.

"What?" he inquired, still walking.

"Nothing. I said 'ok'."

She reached the car before he did and waited for him to unlock the doors.

"Yeah, well, you're 'ok' didn't sound ok."

"Yeah, well, it was. Is that a new tie?"

"Yeah. Do you like it?" he asked, flattening it with his right hand, pushing out his chest.

"Not at all."

And she slammed the door of the SUV.

_Wow. We're in for a great day!_

He started the engine. To break the silence she was putting them in, he asked,

"We didn't get a chance to finish the paperwork. Maybe we could do that tonight?"

She looked out the window, turning away from him.

"I already did."

"All of it?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you wait for me?" he whined.

"If I waited for you every time I had to do something, things would never get done," she replied dryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

He sighed.

"What's with you today?"

She took a second before opening her mouth. But he interrupted her.

"Let me guess! Nothing."

"Yup."

Booth turned on the radio. He kept a straight face, but... Ok. Fighting with her might not have been what he had expected to make him feel better, but it clearly did the trick. He hadn't felt that normal in weeks.

Brennan didn't dare to move. She kept her eyes on the window, not really looking at anything. Why did it feel so good to snap at him like that? She missed their incessant bickering. A wave of normalcy had washed over her. Her reasons for being snippy were all wrong, but at least they were out of that 'what now?' funk. Right?

And so she felt good until Dr. Bryar joined them along with her interminable legs, wearing a suit that perfectly matched Booth's. She rolled her eyes, hoping Booth wouldn't take this as a sign from Fate.

***

Brennan hadn't realized how much she needed to talk to him until she saw him arrive. It's not like she was seeking professional help. Well, _professional _might have been pushing it, but, no. Definitely not. She just knew how much he loved meddling in their partnership and figured he would jump on this opportunity to help her out, discreetly.

"Dr. Sweets," she called out to him, following him into his office. "Could I ask you something?"

"Anything!" he happily let out. "This case is really fascinating. You know I..."

She didn't wait for him to finish, because she simply didn't care.

"No, this isn't about the case."

"Oh?"

He sat down slowly and waited. _Nah,_ he brushed off. _She wouldn't..._

"This is about Booth," she clarified.

_Crap__. Is this a test? Are they in on this together?_

Sweets moved around in his chair, trying to get comfortable. Fat chance.

"Uhm... I don't think we should be discussing this without..."

"No, it will only take a second," she assured him.

He tried to find the right approach. He couldn't do this. As much as his nosy psychologist side wanted out, he would have to remain cold. Because... Well, yeah. He was a little scared. Booth had been very clear. Over the years, Lance hadn't even begun to find a way not to be intimidated by him. And, you know, open threats like _I'll get your FBI privileges revoked _and _Good luck finding a job at McDonald's if you ever mess with us again_ could certainly do a great deal of scarring. Even more so if those threats have been issued in person merely a week before.

"I'm sorry, I can't..." he tried again.

But there she went anyway.

"I just need to know... Is this how he feels every time I go out with someone? Because..."

"Seriously, I can't..."

"...I feel like..."

"Dr. Brennan!" he almost had to shout.

She shut up, stunned, and finally looked at him directly.

"What?" she asked.

Sweets started to breathe again.

"I'll have to stay out of this one," he confessed on an even tone.

She really looked surprised. Of course, she was. She had just used the verb 'to feel' twice in a row and he was asking her not to.

"But you always want me to engage in this type of discussion. All of you. You're always all over me, giving me advice I don't want, and now that I'm actually asking for it, you just..." Her shoulders dropped. "I don't understand."

He felt bad. Really. He wanted to help her, especially since reaching out was completely not her thing. But he tried to find a way to let her down easy. A way that could make sense, if possible. Even if just on the surface.

"I think there's stuff that you need to figure out on your own," he said. Then he assessed the damage.

Typical disbelief? Check. Total confusion? Check. Deep embarrassment? Check. Slight anger?...

"So you _won't _help me," she realized.

He gulped.

"If it's not about the case, then I can't. I'm sorry."

"Booth was right. I don't know how you got this job," she mumbled.

Definite anger? Check.

***

"Angela! Angela! I need a favor."

Dr. Sweets, out of breath, finally caught up with the artist. He had run all over for her. She sighed, -sign that she _had _noticed him yelling on the corner of the street a minute ago- and turned around to face him.

"No, my dad can't play at your wedding. Daisy already asked."

"What? No! I don't want your dad at my wedding, _believe _me!"

"Oh!" Angela laughed, relieved. "Then, what can I do for you?"

"Ok. Uhm... You need to talk to Dr. Brennan."

She brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

"Why? Did something else happen?"

Something else? Ok. He had most definitely missed some important details. Dying to ask, he let it go.

"I don't know. But she came to my office, and, long story short, I told her I couldn't help, but I really think she wants to talk. And since you're her best friend, with a little encouragement, she could open up. And..."

"Whoa, what? You told her you couldn't help? Aren't you _paid_ to help?"

_I won't be paid for long if I do. Trust me._

"I know. But... you really need to talk to her. Or she needs to talk to you," he insisted.

Angela opened her mouth, but dropped her chin to her chest, before looking up again.

"I... She won't talk to me."

"No, no. I agree that normally, she's a very tightly closed person, but, really, she reached out and..."

"She reached out to me too," Angela let out. "I kind of burnt that bridge. I know her. She won't talk about it with me."

They both stayed silent for a moment while it dawned on them.

"So she's..."

"... all alone, yeah."

_Ok, ok. Let's not panic._

***

They hadn't been alone at the diner like this for quite some time, he realized. For a few days now, things had been pretty good, he thought. Some bickering, less awkward pauses, even a real laugh or two. Things were improving, at least. Ever since he had met the marine biologist, in fact. Maybe Bones felt less... threatened, in some way. Maybe his concrete way of moving on would pay off. If he decided to go through with it.

"So!" he said, as she looked outside the window. He would not let her install silence again. "Interesting case, huh? I'm never bringing Parker to the aquarium again. Not that he ever liked it that much, really..."

Brennan had never been one for small talk. So it wasn't really unusual for her to feel annoyed at random mentions of random things like the aquarium. His voiced died when she looked at him in the eye.

"You're going to sleep with her," she spoke.

Booth would certainly have choked on his tongue if he hadn't seen the look in her eyes right before that statement. He had seen that look a few times now. He had no clue what it meant, but he knew it usually came after he mentioned certain fish related things. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to like it as much as he did. Because that look wasn't included in the rules of their 'getting back to normal' attempt.

He paused before he tried to joke, "Is that a direct order?"

"What? No! Of course not!" She ripped a napkin apart while she continued, very, very fast. Even for her. "It's merely an observation. When Andrew invited me to the play, I thought it was code for sex. But Dr. Bryar..." _Stupid name. STOP IT. _"She's made her interest very clear. With her giving you a tie to domesticate you and... I know. Sorry. Forget the tie. But she's much more forward and direct than Andrew is..."

"Whoa!" he couldn't help but breathe out. She was still talking.

"...Is it ok for us to talk like that?"

_Well, you're mostly talking by yourself but..._

"Honestly?" he said, almost wanting to laugh, "I don't know."

She nodded, like it was no big deal, and looked at his plate.

"Are you gonna eat that?" she asked, already picking on his fries.

"No," he quipped.

"Thanks."

***

Brennan thought she was doing a pretty good job at ignoring the unavoidable side-effect of a solid mixed-gender partnership: jealousy. Until now, anyway. She had kept comments that would seem unkind to a minimum; she hadn't pointed out how inappropriate flirting with a consultant while on the job was... Yes. Overall, she was doing ok. As long as they still had their quiet one-on-one moments after work, she would be fine.

Or at least, that's what she had told herself all week. Tonight, she felt slightly different. And she couldn't blame it on alcohol since she hadn't finished her first drink yet. She knew Booth had something on his mind. She couldn't bring herself to ask what it was. She couldn't help but wonder if it had anything to do with her. She had lost the right to ask when she had pushed him away for his own good. Right?

Playing with a coaster, she did her best not to look at him every other second. She was failing miserably. And the third time he looked at his watch, she got the message. He didn't want to be here.

Booth set his glass on the bar, sighing over-loudly. Yes, he was planning his exit. Not that he wanted to go. God, no. He wanted to stay. He wanted to stay here with her. But he wanted a lot of things that would never happen. And he had to keep this promise to himself. He just had to. So, he would not postpone this again. Not three nights in a row.

"Uhh," he let out, stretching his arms.

"You tired?" she asked, knowing exactly what he was doing.

And he knew she knew just by looking at her. But he kept his pretence for a second.

"Yeah..." he lied. "I should go."

He heard her faint smile.

"Ok."

He saw her look at her hands on the bar.

"Goodnight," she huffed, looking at him, unmistakably reading through him.

Yeah, ok. He was a horrible person. But the guilt of his lie got to him before he even went through with it. He sighed.

"I... have a date. With Catherine."

He tried to read her, but... couldn't.

"I shouldn't be late," he added.

She nodded. She felt relieved he hadn't lied. She felt sad he was going. She felt angry for being unable to rid her stomach of the knots that had formed at the mention of her first name.

"Sure," she said on a light note. "Have a nice time."

This was... Booth's gut twisted. She was looking at her hands again. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel like this. Although he had no idea what _like this_ meant exactly. Because she wouldn't tell him even if he asked. He forced himself to get up from the stool. Looked at her again. So beautiful. So alone. He dragged his feet.

"I'm happy for you, you know?" she quickly said as soon as he reached the other side of her.

He stopped, on her left side, at the end of the bar. And he turned to her.

"Yeah?"

_What kind of idiot are you, exactly?_

She looked at him, head tilted to the side.

"Yeah," she confirmed.

It hit her at that moment that she was lying trough her teeth. But that she wanted it to be the absolute truth with everything she had.

"She's..." Brennan continued to prove her point. "...very beautiful. And everyone at the lab seemed to like her a lot."

Booth swallowed and played with his keys.

"What about you?" he asked. "You like her?"

She'd have to lie again. Or find a way around it.

"Well..." She shrugged. "I haven't exactly taken the time to talk to her. I mean... She's a scientist, but other than that, I don't see how our interests or personalities would intersect."

Booth held in a chuckled but couldn't hide a smile.

_You'd be surprised._

Brennan noted his smile.

"I'm sure she can make you happy," she said.

She had tried to sound light and optimistic. But it came out rather cheerless and heart-rending. Booth took a step towards her. He put his forearm on the counter and met hers. She didn't pull away. He looked at their arms, touching.

"You make me happy too, you know?"

He didn't need to say that. Why would he say that? Booth mentally slapped himself. He had to get out of there now. He pushed his arm against hers.

A shiver passed on Brennan's back and tickled the back of her neck. Her arm felt warm, like his skin was radiating through his shirt. She held onto the sensation. Their eyes met, because of her. She blinked once, hoping he wouldn't still be looking into her when she looked again. But there he was, still. So very readable, yet impenetrable. For the longest second, they shared the only thing they could share.

Suddenly, heart pounding in his chest, he straightened his back.

"Well... Goodnight," he whispered.

He patted her hand with his. Just once. Ready to leave.

But she placed her other hand over it.

"Booth..." she called.

The warmth of her touch spread through him like fire. He let his eyes close for a moment before turning to her.

"Do you love her?"

Her words stung them both. Differently. She feared his answer, breath stuck in her throat. He was surprised and confused as to why she would ever think so.

"I haven't even really started dating her yet," he replied with a laugh.

She didn't really understand why he would think this was funny. She urged down the feeling of distress she sensed rising up. Booth and she had never been out on a date. They had never... If loving a person was impossible to him before dating them, then why would he have said...

"So... it wasn't love at first sight?" she said, wanting to sound sarcastic. Or... something.

"Not with her, no," he replied, serious and without a hint of hesitation.

Brennan breathed in deeply through her nose, aware.

"But I'm still hoping it could work out," he confessed. Still serious.

She broke eye contact before going along with it.

"Me too," she said softly.

At that moment, Booth felt the floor could open up under him. He steadied his weight with his hands on the counter. She was lying. Clear as day. She was lying. He tried not to. He desperately tried to shut up. He couldn't be doing this again.

"Bones... are you changing your mind about us?"

His voice wasn't hopeful. It wasn't anything, really. It was calm and steady. Low and husky.

Her heart stopped. He was moving on, right under her nose. He had even warned her beforehand. She never really thought he would do it so fast. But she was holding him back. She couldn't make him wait for her. Maybe if he was moving on so quickly...

"No," she murmured. She knew her eyes were shiny when she looked him in the eye with a smile that wasn't a smile at all. "But _you_ are."

She had done the right thing that night, after their trip down memory lane. She had done the right thing.

Her eyes pierced through him. Did she really think that this is what it was about? Him changing his mind? His hand cupped the side of her face. His thumb brushed her rosy cheek. Her lips parted.

She couldn't look away. She couldn't move. She could only feel. Her heart beating its inner most desire, a breath escaped her lips. He was barely leaning in and whole body was already alert.

Softly, he pressed his lips against hers. He sensed her leaning in and pushed his mouth against hers. If he moved his lips, if he parted them to taste her just a little more, she would feel him tremble. He gently, slowly –way too slowly- began to pull away.

As soon as she felt him starting to break the kiss, she opened her mouth slightly, just long enough to capture his lower lip between hers. And she straightened her back, making herself taller. She breathed in his sent, his taste.

Caught off guard by her response, he let his hand reach the back of her neck and brought her closer. Her breath in his mouth sent a shock down his body. Imperceptibly, instinctively, he pushed his groined forward.

The quiet, intense moan they shared made them break the kiss at the same time. The sound of their lips parting suddenly instantly brought them back to reality.

They weren't looking at each other when Booth said,

"I didn't change my mind about us. About you. But I can't wait around forever anymore. I need... to be happy _now._ And I'm trying to be. You understand?" he spoke softly.

"And you deserve to be happy," she agreed. That was the very reason why she wasn't changing her mind. She licked her lips, aware he was looking at them. "I just wish you'd stop kissing me like this," she added on a lighter tone. "I don't think it's a proper thing to do right before a date with someone else."

"And I wish you would stop kissing me back," he retorted, taking a step back. "Since you're dating my boss and all..."

He tenderly brushed her hair from her shoulder and walked away.

Once outside, Booth felt free. He had said everything he could possibly say. The rest wasn't up to him anymore. And that felt damn good.

***

"So! Dr. Catherine Bryar, huh?" Cam laughed under her breath.

Booth winced and took a sip from the small glass in front of him.

"Come on," he said. "You don't really wanna talk about this, do you?"

Cam raised her eyebrows.

"Of course, I do!"

Booth didn't say anything back. He just turned to her, waiting for it.

"Don't get me wrong," she started. "I'm glad you're putting yourself out there and all, but... Come on, Seeley, what are you doing?"

"I'm... widening my horizons," he said with a laugh.

"Of course. Scientist, shiny brown hair, piercing blue eyes, last name starting with _BR_... Yes. Totally wide."

Booth rolled his eyes. _Nonsense._ Camille had no right to make him feel bad about this.

"Look," he started to explain, "Bones didn't want this. She said no. Twice, actually."

He took another sip, while Cam quickly replied,

"Well... Can you really blame her?"

Booth frowned.

"Wh.. Yes! Yes, I can! Ok?"

He saw the smile on his friend's face. A touch of pity? Please!

But Cam let it go. She smirked, though.

"Just so you know, Dr. Brennan really doesn't like it."

"Camille, stop. Don't," he warned her.

"What?" she interjected, offended.

"I'm not doing this to toy with her." _Not only that._ "I'm trying to do this for me."

Cam put a hand on his shoulder.

"I know," she said.

"So just... be happy for me."

"I am!" she asserted. But then she grew serious. "But I'd be _really_ happy if _you_ were really happy. That's all."

_Really happy. Right._

***

Brennan wasn't thinking about their latest kiss anymore. Really. Which was a relief. Well, yes, she had _just _thought about it to note that she wasn't thinking about it, but his taste wasn't lingering in her mind anymore.

She was wearing a blue cotton pyjama bottom and a white tank top, getting ready to settle in the couch to try to read a book. It was still early, but she had nothing better to do. The case was over –finally-, she had no dissertations to review, no paperwork, no after-work drinks. Nothing.

It had been a long time, she noticed, since the last time she had had _nothing _to do and _nobody_ to do nothing with. She remembered she used to like that. Time to herself. Time to think. _Time to think._ Like she needed more of that lately.

A knock at the door wasn't supposed to feel familiar. Wasn't supposed to be recognizable. And yet her stomach had flipped on the first one. And again on the second series of knocks. She put down the book she had planned on falling asleep on and flattened her hair before stopping herself. She opened the door after confirming the cause of her stomach twisting.

"Booth? What are you doing here?" she asked.

He came in even before the door was fully open.

"Case is closed," he shrugged like she was supposed to know he'd be there. "I brought beer!"

She shut the door, locked it as she always did, and followed him to her living room. She watched him put the beer on her coffee table, pick up her book, frown with disgust, set it back down. She watched him take his jacket off, throw it on the back of the couch. She watched how amazingly comfortable he looked around her stuff.

"What?" he asked after having caught her staring at him.

She walked up to the couch, but didn't sit down yet.

"I thought you would be going out with Dr. Bryar tonight," she explained.

"Nope. Tonight, it's you and me, Bones."

She felt a smile sneak up on her lips. She looked down. She noted how naked she felt in her white tank top and tried to compose herself.

"I bought the ice cream you like!" she said, remembering. "You want some?"

Booth smiled at her excitement. She looked so proud of herself.

"Sure," he laughed.

He watched her disappear in the kitchen and looked around him. _This._ Just _this_ made him feel light. And that fact hit him like a ton of bricks.

She came back with the biggest bowl of ice cream he had ever seen.

"Here," she announced, proudly.

"Thanks," he said, taking it and setting it down on the table.

How could a fucking bowl of ice cream be the highlight of his day? How sad was his life, really?

Brennan noted a change in his disposition.

"You don't look so happy," she pointed out. And she added on a joking tone, "Is the sex that disappointing?"

She laughed. She did. Because it was supposed to be a joke. But Booth didn't take it like it.

"Bones, stop."

The sound of his voice brought her back to where they were, really. She quickly tried to correct her mistake.

"I'm sorry! I just thought I'd try to tease you, but I didn't take into account the awkwardness of the timing of everything. I really wasn't serious."

Though she was. She sat down next to him, and caught herself wondering if he had slept with her yet. Certainly, such a sexually-aggressive looking woman would not waste time. Not like _she_ had.

He knew what she was trying to do. Lighten the mood. Rise above all this. And so...

"How's the sex with Hacker?"

That escaped his mouth before he even could think of stopping himself. He just wanted to show her how weird that kind of joke was. And now, there he was, actually _terrified_ she would answer him.

Brennan froze, wide-eyed, beer cap in her hand, beer in the other.

"Whoa!" she gasped. They saw the look on each other's face and burst out in laughter.

"Yeah..." Booth started after his laughter died down. She was still chuckling, probably in shock. "I just thought I'd try that out." He opened his beer. "Doesn't really work for me."

They exchanged a smile. Brennan sat on her feet, careful not to touch him. She played with the sticker of her bottle.

"I could answer, though, if you want," she risked, glimpsing at him.

"No."

"No, really, I can."

He shut his eyes. "I know you can. I'm not sure _I_ ca..."

"It's not happening," she said really fast.

He turned to her instantly.

"Huh?"

She shook her head 'no'.

"There's no sex," she clarified in a huff.

Booth took a sip. He knew he'd be relieved to know that. He just didn't know it would shake him so deeply, to the core.

"No sex, huh?" he repeated, surprised they were actually talking like this. Unsure they should be. "Why?" he asked, almost scared. Scared of disappointment? Maybe.

"Because of you."

She had said it without thinking. And now it was out. Slightly nervous, she glanced at him.

"Me?!" he choked. "Wha... because he's my boss?"

She shrugged and tried to re-stick the now unsticky sticker on the bottle.

"Why?" he asked again, so softly she wasn't even sure he had said it.

"Just doesn't feel right," she finally answered.

Booth had trouble wrapping his brain around this. He needed to understand, even if he knew he could never fully understand her.

"Ok. Let me get this straight," he said, turning to her on the couch. He cleared his throat. "You don't... wanna be with me, and yet you're not planning on being with anyone else."

She was watching him talk. And that was making him really nervous. Self-conscious.

"What, you're gonna spend the rest of your life alone?" he said on a joking tone.

"Why not?" she replied.

Was she serious?

"Many successful people spent their life alone. It's said to bring a certain level of enlightenment," she confirmed.

He laughed.

"What, are you Buddhist, all of a sudden?"

But she wasn't laughing. She looked very still. Resigned. Booth felt a twinge of panic. She couldn't go back so far.

"Aw, Bones, you don't wanna be alone."

"Maybe I do," she shrugged again, brushing it off so he would let it go.

"No, you don't," he insisted. When he saw she wasn't even listening to him, he grabbed their bottles of beer and put them away on the table. He put a hand on her knee. But took it off as soon as she looked at it. "You wanna lose yourself in someone, remember?" he asked.

Hearing her own words, words she had pronounced so long ago, it seemed... Her nose tickled again and she opened her mouth not to let any emotions flash on her face.

"It doesn't matter what I want," she whispered, unable to bring her voice to match her face. "It's what I can, that matters. And I can't..."

She stopped herself. Would she be able to say that to him again? Would he really understand this time around?

"You can't what?" he pressed on, putting his hand on her knee again, but leaving it there. Squeezing it so she would answer.

"I told you," she murmured. "I can't change." And she looked up at him, same tears. Same desperation. But she didn't hold his gaze for long.

"But you_ have_ changed," he said, insisting. "And I can't wait for you to see that."

She shook her head.

"I'm not asking you to wait," she explained.

"No. I mean... You will. You will see that. And I'll be here when you do."

A shot of hope passed through her veins. Before she could hold on to it, she had to make sure of what he was saying. She repeated,

"You'll be here?"

"Yeah."

Neither of them had any idea what had just been said.

Booth forced himself to sit back, to stop touching her.

"I'll be here," he repeated. He took his beer. "As a friend." He handed her hers. "Always there." And sank into the couch. "And I'll be happy for you."

She looked as he threw his head back on the back of the couch. She realized she was holding to the bottle a little too tightly. She released some tension in her fingers, feeling the coldness of the condensation on it, like seeping through her.

"Oh," she huffed. "Thank you."

He had moved on. And now _she_ had to. She wondered if she still had to try to open up or if she should be giving up and shutting down for good. Because this was so hard... And that level of difficulty? She knew it would never be worth it for anyone else. Ever.

She looked at him again and took a sip.

* * *

"**Was that enough steamboats?"**

**If you want next chapter fast... if you want the hotness and yes, M rated stuff, I alluded to last time, then you gotta review. Ok? Quote, guess which one of us wrote this chapter, anything. But leave us something :) **


	6. Let's Not Jump to Complusions

**A.N.:**** Hey, it's TLN (Ourania)! Okay, so this chapter is_ really, very long_. More than long. It is set during the Gravedigger trial, and is rated M. Yes, you heard me, rated M. You know what that means. Young, impressionable readers are invited not to read further lol.  
I must state that I loved writing this, brain-storming with Annick and improvising scenes to get the overall feel of it. This, is the result. I wanted to thank you all for your reviews, they mean the world to us both and encourage us to continue and try to come up to your expectations. I hope you enjoy this installment! And review accordingly.**

**One last thing, the theme of this is **_**words**_** opposed to **_**actions,**_** in many different ways. You'll find out why soon!**

Disclaimer: This is not ours, but we really enjoy trying to outwit the original series by writing situations before they appear on TV lol.

Chapter 6  
LET'S NOT JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS

An unexpected knock on her front door caught Bones' attention as she tried to zip up her skirt. It was court day, yet another one, and she was expected to testify. Usually this would not represent any type of exception; as a forensic anthropologist collaborating with the authorities on murder cases, she was required to expose a synthesis of her findings in order to aid the prosecution to get a proper conviction. But this time she was the object of her findings. This was the trial of Heather Taffet, who had nicknamed herself the Gravedigger.

She desperately attempted to ignore the lingering sensation of nervousness that would invade her each time she remembered what she would have to endure during that day. It felt like this ordeal rested upon her shoulders like the heaviest of burdens, yet she knew this was hardly the most traumatic experience she ever had to face. It was one of them, undoubtedly, but she had been through worse. She wondered if this had anything to do with another lingering sensation she was desperate to obliterate, that of loneliness. This once familiar feeling had become foreign throughout the years, making its return most unsettling.

She took a deep breath before opening. She would not let it show.

"Dad?" she asked as her father appeared on the threshold.

"Why do you look so surprised? You didn't check your peephole?"

She usually did. Mostly due to the incessant scolding from Booth about her safety, or simply good sense, she had taken this habit. But today there was no paternalistic protectionism to keep her from being distracted. She wondered if Booth would care.

"I'm not surprised," she frowned, trying to look annoyed, "I'm just late for court."

He followed her inside as she grabbed a pair of earrings from her kitchen counter and started to put them on. She did not have time for whatever it was he considered to be important.

"Did you read this rag, baby?" he exclaimed, waving a folded newspaper.

She rapidly eyed the familiar paper, then searching for her purse.

"Is this why you came?"

"Of course!" he looked obfuscated she could think otherwise. "Did you read it?"

"Yes," she answered evenly. "I don't understand why you are reacting so strongly though. This is meaningless gossip."

"Meaningless gossip? Are you certain you read it?"

"Quite certain yes."

"And that's it?" he frowns. "Tempe, they are attacking you!"

"Saying I am the daughter of a con man is a fact. Although I doubt it alters my ability as an expert testifying for the Federal prosecution."

She kept busying herself while talking, pacing around her apartment in search for this or that element to store in her purse. She tried not to let her father see that the words she had read had had more effect than she would admit. She rationalized, repeating to herself that those were mere words, fabrics of the human psyche destined to give an approximate meaning to much too complex situations. But the truth was that it had hurt her.

And Max knew it.

"Baby, it's me. It's dad. You can tell me."

She rolled her eyes, "Dad, there is nothing to say. This is a very basic manipulative technique put forth by the defense attorney. They try to debunk my work, to influence the opinion." _By tainting my name and all my career. By tainting who I am, what I fought for my whole life. Alone._"I don't accept it," he stated, throwing the paper in the garbage can. "I'll sue them for defamation."

She let out a disbelieving chuckle, "Defamation is supposed to represent calumny, not the truth."

"They're not saying the truth about you!"

"Well then it's my problem, dad, not yours," she concluded, trying to pacify him.

He sighed, defeated.

"I'm worried. You don't look as happy as you used to lately..."

She froze, the knot in her stomach tightening.

"I'm alright. I'm just..." she paused. "It's complicated to be both expert and witness. I'm not used to this process. I'm uncomfortable."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he inquired, perfectly aware of the answer he'll receive.

"No, thank you."

_As expected._He was prepared to reiterate when there was a knock on the front door. Bones instantly jumped at the occasion and raced to open. Without checking the peephole.

"Booth?" she frowned.

He made a face, "You didn't check who that was before opening?"

He still cared. She smiled and let him in as he handed her a cup of coffee.

"What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to have breakfast with Catherine?" she let out, trying not to sound reproachful. Or jealous. Or concerned. Yeah.

"Oh, I canceled. Court day, and everything."

The reality of it was that he had read the article too, and had managed to cancel his date, threaten a journalist, buy coffee and get to her place in less than 30 minutes. Only because he could not stand the idea of someone deliberately hurting her, especially not then.

"Okay," she answered, trying to match his apparent casualness.

They observed each other for a second, expecting something to be said. But nothing came.

"Hey, Booth!" Max interrupted.

Booth jumped up. "Oh, hey, Max!"

The two men shook hands politely, while Booth cursed himself to have been once again too absorbed by his partner to notice anything surrounding him. Maybe he should freshen up his sniper training... Not that he would be enthusiastic to return to Fort Benning.

"So, you're scheduled to appear in court too, Booth?"

"Uh, no," he answered, uncomfortable. He did not want to confess he was there for Bones only.

"This is why I don't understand why you would cancel your date," Bones exclaimed before disappearing in the hallway leading to her bedroom. She did not want to confess she was glad.

When Max saw his daughter exit the room, he found himself unable to repress his need to comment upon what he had just witnessed. He knew something was off, overtime he had developed what he called a 6th sense, and it told him the atmosphere was thicker than normal.

"What's going on between you and my daughter?" he asked, straightforward.

Booth almost chocked on his coffee. "What? Nothing!"

"Did you hurt her?" he pursued.

"No!"

"You cheated on her?"

Booth frowned, "To cheat on her I would have to be in a relationship with her. Which is not the case."

He knew there was no intimidating Max. So he glanced towards the hallway, hopeful that Bones would return soon. What was she doing anyway? Taking a bath?

"Who is this _Catherine _then?" Max continued, inquisitive.

"It's..." Booth frowned at his submissive behavior before deciding he should consider rebellion. "Is that any of your business?"

"Anything related to the well-being of my daughter is my business. You are related to her well-being, so you are my business."

Booth swallowed.

"Look, Max, it's between Bones and me. I..." he said quietly, interrupted by her return. "Hey, Bones!" he clapped his hands together. "Chop, chop! We're late!"

She frowned, "Why are you so enthusiastic?"

"I'm high on caffeine," he explained, helping her to put on her coat. "Come on, let's go."

Once they were alone, on their way to court, silence settled between them as it often did lately. She stared out of the window, pensively. He did not dare to interrupt her, but he knew her too well to doubt it had nothing to do with the infamous article. He glanced at her often, almost hoping she would notice him and feel cornered, or oppressed and, respond. Anything to make her talk.

He started humming to himself. Maybe this would be sufficient to make her react.

Soon she frowned, annoyed. "Did you and Dr. Bryar make love?"

"What?" he exclaimed, stunned. He had not expected _that_ reaction. Much less _those_ words.

"You're overly enthusiastic, you hum to yourself. The logical conclusion to draw is that you had a release of noradrenaline," she stated, matter-of-fact.

He frowned, "I didn't! Okay? I didn't!"

It hit him that he did not want her to think he had cheated on her. Whatever Max had said was true: it was not necessary for them to be in a relationship to make him feel guilty to see someone else. Moreover, to share the intimacy of someone else, while they did not even share each other's intimacy. This made no sense, and he could not fight it.

"You had sex then?"

He made a face, "No! Neither! Okay?"

"Then stop humming," she concluded assertively.

His vehement denial made her feel relieved, despite her desire to be supportive of his initiative. She knew she had no right to react this way, but today she considered she was entitled to show signs of irrationality. Just... to relieve the pressure. _Bad choice of words_, she thought.

A few more minutes of silence passed before he could not take it any longer.

"You read the article?"

"Yes," she answered with a sigh.

"You know it's a load of bullcrap, right?"

"Yes."

He would not take another monosyllabic answer.

"They did this to disturb you. You can't let them get to you," he added in a warm, soothing tone.

"I know."

She was still staring out the window absently. He knew words were meaningless to her, so he favored another approach. Something which, luckily, would have an impact.

"I called the journalist who wrote it," he said with a mischievous smile. "I told him that Federal authorities would follow his every moves from now on, and that he better watch himself."

She finally looked at him. "You did?"

"Yep."

"Did my dad ask you to do this?" she asked suspiciously.

He frowned, "No, why?"

"Nothing," she smiled. "Thank you, Booth."

Suddenly her lingering sensations of nervousness and isolation waned. She would not let them get to her, because he was there. He was still there. As a friend. Which is what she had asked for.

When she heard the judge utter her name, she took a deep breath, feeling her friends' gaze on her. They had come, all of them. Hodgins was there, obviously, he was also scheduled to testify that day. Angela had come, Sweets and Cam. They were all sitting on the same bench, shoulders to shoulders, like a family. She had thought their overall unity threatened by her recent actions, but they were here. They had not deserted her anymore than Booth had.

She looked at him, he smiled. A reassuring, encouraging smile. She got up to take the stand.

"State your name and occupation," the judge declared.

"Doctor Temperance Brennan, I'm a forensic anthropologist working at the Jeffersonian institute."

"Raise your right hand. You do affirm that all the testimony you are about to give in the case now before the court will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; this you do affirm under the pains and penalties of perjury?"

She raised her hand, gaze locking with Booth.

"I do."

As she took the oath, she reflected upon the arbitrary nature of it, and its quintessential instability. She could swear to be truthful and lie, who would ever find out? This was what words were. Fallible. But he was there, to show her that she could never lie under his gaze. She was taking this oath not under the law, or in front of God; she was taking this oath in front of him. That frightened her.

The judge then called Caroline to begin the examination. Bones took another of those breaths that made her feel out of air. She recognized the signs of panic, but she knew herself to be stronger than it all. She felt stronger when he smiled. She was not out of air, she was safe. Out of that car. He had saved her, they all had. And they were here.

"Dr. Brennan, could you please describe to our jury the reason of your presence?"

She made sure to make eye contact with the jury, as Caroline had literally ordered her to, during their preparation. She had to provoke sympathy, empathy. She had no idea whether she was capable of it or not. Caroline seemed to think it nearly impossible. That thought made her throat tighten.

"Three years ago," she began, remembering each stage of the speech she had prepared, "Two bodies were discovered in a container in an advanced state of decomposition. The authorities requested the collaboration of the Jeffersonian institute to determine their identity and the cause of their death. It turned out they were twin brothers who had been abducted several years prior in exchange for a ransom. They were among the victims of a kidnapper that the authorities had named the _Gravedigger_, due to the recurrent pattern of the kidnappings."

"Please, describe the pattern, Dr. Brennan"

"The victims were generally abducted in an underground setting, often a parking lot, shot with an industrial stun gun behind the ear and buried underground in any type of containers that might ensure their survival for a given period of time. Period of time during which the relatives of the abducted victims were enjoined to pay a ransom."

The more she tried to detach herself from the experience by being factual, the more she felt she would suffocate. She glanced towards Booth, he nodded reassuringly, silently asking her to go on. He had gone through it too. He knew. As always, he knew. He knew she could bear it all.

"When you investigated the death of these twin boys, where did it lead you?" pursued Caroline to put her back in focus.

"Shortly after the beginning of our investigation, Dr. Hodgins and I were in turn abducted, and buried underground. A ransom demand was issued on the phone of my partner, special agent Seeley Booth," she specified by giving him another look. "Asking for a wire transfer of 8 million dollars in exchange for GPS coordinates leading to our position."

"How long were you buried underground, and in what conditions?"

"We were buried for approximately 15 hours." she swallowed, glancing towards Hodgins who was taking a breath. Attempting, like her, to remember that he was out. "In our case, the container was my car, immersed four feet underground, in a coal mine."

"Did you ever consider you would not survive?" shot suddenly Caroline.

Brennan gasped, this question had not been prepared.

"I... We..." She looked at Booth, desperate. Once more he gave her an encouraging nod. "Dr. Hodgins and I associated both our expertise to extend our survival and ensure it."

"This does not answer my question, Dr. Brennan. Despite you and Dr. Hodgins' determination, did you ever consider you would suffocate to death?" she emphasized the last words, looking at the jury intensely.

Bones looked down.

"Yes," she let out, her throat tightening. "But..." she continued, looking up to reveal teary eyes. "I knew we had people looking for us. This is why I refused to wait passively."

"Could you describe us precisely what you did during these 15 hours of captivity?"

"Despite disorientation, we attempted to apply a methodical analysis of our surroundings. Dr. Hodgins suffered from a severe leg trauma, I had to perform rudimentary surgery in order to ensure his survival. Then, we studied the different possibilities to extend our oxygen supply, that in order to find a possibility to escape."

"From a car buried four feet beneath the ground?" asked Caroline, incredulous.

"I admit the odds were against us. But Dr. Hodgins and I had sufficient knowledge to expect a result, whatever it might be."

"What was the result to expect?" Caroline pressed.

"Using the explosives from the airbags, we endeavored to blow our way out of the windshield. This enterprise could also have created an internal explosion which would have killed us in one tenth of a second."

Facts, were easy. She could name them, categorize them. Actions too. They had done this to expect that result. So far, she evolved in a comfort zone. But she knew this would not last. Caroline had warned her, 'No comfort zone with me, chérie'. So she expected the worse. She expected reminders of suffocation, of fears and tears. She expected to be instrumented to give sufficient reasons to the jury to feel empathy. An empathy she could not communicate alone, not with facts or actions.

"You knew there was a high risk for you to precipitate your death, but you pursued?"

"It was either this, or... suffocate to death, as you said." she swallowed, "This left us with very few options."

She was not going where Caroline wanted to take her, and she saw it bothered the prosecutor. So she waited, trying to persuade herself that she would be able to convey emotions, even though it meant seeking a pain she had buried deep.

"So let me summarize it for you. For 15 hours, imprisoned underground, you entertained the idea of violent death. This must have been a particularly traumatic experience." she paused to let the words sink in. "What gave you the courage to face it the way you did?"

She knew that was it. She had to say it. Her eyes instantly fell on Booth and stayed there.

"I knew I was not alone." she said quietly. "I knew there were people outside trying as hard as I was. I owed it to them to survive. It did not matter that I was afraid, or that I considered death seriously enough to write a... goodbye letter. I had to try."

Caroline jumped on what she was offered, "You wrote a goodbye letter?"

"Yes," she said as she blushed, still watching Booth. "Dr. Hodgins suggested that since we were not entirely positive that our attempt at blowing our way out would be successful, I should imitate him and write a note to someone I would want to say goodbye to. He had written one to Angela."

She added the latest part, unaware that Hodgins had never told anyone about it. Not any more than she had. She saw Angela take his hand, smiling reassuringly to him. All the while, Booth kept observing her. His gaze was intense with curiosity and concern. She had always told him this experience had been traumatic, but merely among the worst situations she had faced. She had never told him she had gone as far as thinking about saying goodbye. To whom? At first he thought this had to be to her father, or her brother. But the way she had looked at him made him consider things otherwise. And hope. Then she blushed, and he knew. This letter was for him.

When she came back to her place, she felt exhausted. The day had been as trying as she had suspected it would be, although she had benefited from the unfailing support of her peculiar family. She kicked off her shoes, absently reading her mail before setting it down on her kitchen counter. Next to her phone, she found a note left by her father.

_Hey baby,_

I took the liberty to use my spare key. I went grocery shopping, the fridge is full and don't be surprised to hear knocks on your door. Everyone should be here by 8pm.

Love,

Dad

She frowned. Who was 'everyone'? What had he done now? Curious, she surveyed the content of her fridge and cupboards. He had indeed made sure that whoever would soon knock on her door would not find themselves malnourished. She sighed, and checked her watch, it was 7:30. She wondered if she would have time to shower before the anonymous 'everyone' arrived, or if she should call her father, complain and cancel on 'everyone'.

Re-opening her fridge, she found that she was too hungry to lose time over complaints or shower and she started considering cooking instead. She instinctively selected ingredients that she knew Booth liked. All the while wondering if he would be among 'everyone', or if he had rescheduled his date with Catherine. The thought made her uncomfortable, she preferred to dismiss it.

He had been strange around her after her testimony. Cautious, protective. Nothing out of character, really but, it seemed different, as though he knew something she ignored. She chuckled to herself. _He always knows things I ignore_, she thought. But this time she wished she would know. He had not let her time to ask when he had taken her back home.

When she realized it was already 8pm, she was engrossed in her introspection slash cooking session, still half mad at her father to have imposed domesticity on her on such a day. Then she heard a first knock. This time she checked the peephole. It was Hodgins, with Angela. She did not question their synchronized arrival, nor its subsequent meaning.

She opened, smiling. Maybe her father had not made such an unforgivable mistake.

"Come in," she enjoined them.

"Sweetie!" Angela exclaimed, enthusiastically. "We got that message from your dad saying that we should stick together during the trial, and he is totally right. We will organize dinners every night until it's all over. What do you think?"

Bones frowned, "I'll have to cook every night?"

"We were thinking about some kind of a rotation," intervened Hodgins, smiling. "Like, tomorrow at my place, then at Angela's, then at Booth's etc..."

So Booth was coming too? Maybe he would not. Maybe he had better things to do than to 'stick together' with them. The question burned her lips. "Booth is coming too?"

Angela gave her a knowing smile, "Your dad said so. You didn't know we'd come?"

"Not until I got home," Bones answered while taking glasses out of a cupboard, noticing the bottles Hodgins had brought were tequila. _Tequila. _"Who is coming exactly?"

"Cam, Sweets, Daisy and Booth," enumerated Angela. She could feel her best friend tense up each time she uttered her partner's name. She knew that what had occurred during the afternoon had affected them both, in a strangely positive way. She did not know how exactly, but she would have all evening to observe them and attempt to figure it out.

Bones nodded, handed them both glasses that she filled with tequila.

"We don't wait for the others?" asked Hodgins.

"We need a drink. Plus you supplied enough tequila to have us all suffer from an alcoholic coma," she smiled, filling her own glass.

After a while, everyone had arrived, safe for Booth. It was 8:30, and although she was having a great time, Bones could not help staring at the door. She responded to the laughs, came and went from the kitchen to complete the preparation of the dinner, helped Angela and Cam to set the table, all this with, each time, a poorly concealed glance towards the door.

Cam noticed it, and whispered with a smile, "He'll be here soon."

"Maybe he had other plans," Bones answered, trying to appear casual.

Then she heard a familiar knock, and headed for the door all too rapidly to look casual. Everyone noticed, but she did not care. Her heart pounded too fast, probably because she already had two shots of tequila, she thought to justify herself.

"Booth!" she exclaimed, aware of how terrible her faked surprise sounded.

He made a face, "You never check before opening, right?"

"I... I recognized your knock!" she said defensively.

He rolled his eyes, trying not to interpret what she had just said, and made his way inside the apartment. She burned to ask him why he was so late. That was not like him. She noticed he had changed from his suit, and was wearing a pair of jeans with one of his Flyers t-shirts.

"Thanks for coming," she said tentatively.

He smiled, "Your father is right. We gotta stick together."

The truth was that he had received a very different message from the others. When he had come home, still torturing himself with the possible contents of a letter possibly written for him, he had found that Max had called him twice. A first time with the 'stick together' message, and a second time with something more... personal. He had told him that he had noticed a change in his daughter, that he did not like and that he knew Booth was responsible for it. He had told him that if he cared about her, he could not leave her like that. And Booth had wondered how much Bones' old man could know exactly about them. He had decided that he could indeed, not leave her like that, especially after what she had gone through during the day, and had canceled on Catherine, again. But he would not tell her that. No more than he would tell her he had also come to find an answer to that haunting question of the letter...

He settled on the couch, greeting the others, despite the fact that they had spent the day together, and Hodgins handed him a glass.

"Tequila?" he frowned, instantly looking at Bones.

She smiled, sitting on the armchair facing him and taking her own glass, that had been refilled by Angela. She raised it, preparing for a toast.

"To _bhang_!" she said, without breaking eye contact with him.

"To what?" Cam interjected, frowning.

"To _bhang,_" he echoed with a low voice, clinging his glass with that of Bones.

Everyone imitated them, quite certain that they were observing something that had a meaning escaping their grasp. Angela felt it was like being at the zoo to observe wild animals in their natural environment. Better not interrupt or contradict them if you hoped to see any kind of show.

Two hours and three bottles of tequila later to accompany the dinner, the gang was relaxed and enjoying their evening. Bones felt the warmth of gratefulness invade her when Hodgins made a toast for her father, stating with some difficulty that her 'con dad was a cool dad'. She had herself enjoyed her share of alcohol and acknowledged the possibility that all sensation of warmth might be the product of some chemical reaction she could not remember.

Booth shared her enthusiasm, raising his glass every now and then to propose toasts of his own. But most of the time, she would catch him watching her with that intense gaze, a gaze telling her that he was expecting something. She feared alcohol would obstruct his sense of inhibition and encourage another declaration. She feared it because this time she knew she would not have the will to contradict him.

"Bones!" Booth called out. "Hey! Where the hell is your soap!"

He was in the bathroom. Probably washing his hands, from what she understood as she joined him there with a disbelieving frown, rapidly replaced by a smile. He was trying to open a shampoo bottle, his intense focus making him stick out his tongue like a child.

"It's on the sink," she giggled, quite joyful herself. "Do you have a visual handicap I would be unaware of?"

He made a face, falsely obfuscated. "Hey, I'm a sniper, my visual acuity is top notch."

"You _were_ a sniper, as in past tense and time too... Maybe you're just getting old," she answered, squinting at him in a vain attempt to inspect his visual acuity herself.

He licked his lower lip, instinctively aroused by her proximity. This instantly made him unaware of his surroundings, the situation, or everything unrelated to her and to what had obsessed him throughout the evening.

"So you wrote me a letter, uh?" he asked, after he had turned on the charm.

His seductive smile made her giggle again as she answered, "I didn't."

"You did."

"I didn't."

"You _did," _he repeated, unsteadily drawing closer with a goofy chuckle.

"I did not!" she matched stubbornly, despite her amusement.

He swallowed, still laughing. She was gonna play it that way? He would play it that way too. Mostly because he had no idea of where this was going or why he needed to know. It was simply fun to be there with her, so close, so intimately linked without all the painful weight of sobriety.

"You lied to a Federal judge, then?" he could have said the naughtiest thing, his tone would not have been different. He was after a prey. Dangerously efficient predator.

She tried to appear earnest, but she realized she did not remember how. _Crap, I'm drunk_.

"I said I wrote _a_ letter, AH!" she pointed her index while answering, using her other hand to steady herself with the sink. He grabbed her finger and trapped it between his own.

He smiled cockily, "It was for me."

She wondered how he could be so close. His chest was grazing her breasts as he kept his insistent, seductive gaze on her. She felt dizzy.

"Are you gonna lick my finger again?"

He raised an eyebrow, playful. "If you don't tell me about the letter..."

"Is that how they taught you to torture in the army?" she answered, slightly disbelieving.

"They don't _teach_ us torture!" he exclaimed, still holding onto her hand firmly.

"Interrogation techniques incorporating physical abuse were authorized by many administrations throughout the History of our country, including the Bush adm..."

He cut her off, still holding her finger, emphasizing each word. "I have not been taught how to torture!"

"You learned on your own then..." she winked.

_She winked? Wow._This drunken, involuntary invitation was received by Booth as another display of seductiveness. He drew closer -if that was possible- to her face, and used his best sensual tone.

"You think I'm torturing you? How about you then?"

She shivered.

"I'm torturing you?" she whispered. Blurred memories of his tears weeks earlier, or of his disappointment years earlier; made her fear she was indeed his torturer. But he smiled. So that was not it, or he was just too drunk to remember.

_That's certainly better that way_.

He brought his lips close to her ear, mimicking the intimacy of secret sharing. "The letter. You keep it a secret. What did you confess to me that you would want to hide that much?"

"Private things," she confessed, involuntarily again. If only he would stop being so warm and smell so wonderfully nice. If only his grip on her hand was not so masculine, alpha, sensual _and all that shit_.

This victory made him bold, "What did you write?"

Mad at herself to have been trapped that easily and more importantly to have responded that readily to his damned charismatic aura _or something,_ she pouted.

"I'm not saying..."

"Say..." he whispered, still seductively.

She took her finger back and crossed her arms.

"No."

"Say..."

Booth was so close…

"No."

She went to leave. She meant to leave. But he made a face and shut the door, trapping her.

"I'll have you say it anyway..." he whispered, teasingly.

But before he could understand what was happening, she imprisoned his lips with her own, locking her arms around his neck. Most likely to palliate to her loss of balance. She did not care this kiss was mostly tequila induced -should all their kisses be motivated by dried mistletoe or fermented... shit, what was tequila made of already? Fermented pineapples, right. Whatever the origin of these catalysts, they always needed one it seemed. It made her wonder if her practical vision of sexuality as a mere product of physical stimulation was so unrealistic in the eye of the unscientific world.

He drew back after a few seconds, trying to breathe, but his body still clearly leaning onto her own.

"It's not nice," he whispered.

She frowned, "I found it really nice..."

"I meant, you..."

But she was kissing him again, and he did not fight anymore than he had a few seconds before. Her snake-like arms now releasing him partially as she slowly let her hands make their way through his hair. Tasting him was as intoxicating as ever. The heat radiating from his body made her feel feverish, trembling with desire. If only he would not simply let himself be... _Wow_. As she reviewed his lack for personal involvement in their activity, he seized her skull violently, pushing his body against her with such force that he slammed them both against the vanity sink.

He could not pretend he had no idea of what he was doing, he was perfectly aware of the precise and conquering attitude that was his at that moment. It simply felt like... He wanted to feel. Feel every inch of her, inside out and finally understand what she was made of. He could not read her mind, not even that letter. He could not know. So he wanted to taste, to touch, to smell, to revive each of the senses that she had managed to silence throughout all those years and that she alone could save from obliteration. She would probably soon retaliate with reproachful remarks on his alpha-male assertion over her, but until then, he would attempt to redistribute roles like he had hoped they would be distributed in the first place. He was a man, she was a woman, and they had had a tad too much of tequila.

_I invented the damned time machine_, he thought as he grabbed a fistful of her hair to bring her closer. She responded by planting her nails into the soft skin of his neck, clinging to him in a surrender she could not fathom. She felt weak, blaming the alcohol vapors but clearly aware it was only the result of her being manhandled by him in a way she had never hoped he would.

When she felt his fingers were grasping the hem of her skirt, she was grateful not to have been given time to change into a pair of jeans after they had left court. Feelings his touch on the bare flesh of her thighs, slowly but firmly making his way up, and up... A familiar wave of warmth invaded her body, rocking it in slight spasms. When he felt her, he stopped an instant, squeezing her upper thighs while deepening their endless kiss. Suddenly he grabbed her butt and made her sit on the vanity, settling between her parted legs.

She drew closer, her breasts heavily pressed against his chest as she started to rub herself against his groin. He moaned instantly, his fingers digging into the flesh of her buttocks as he helped her in her enterprise. He could feel the soft warmth of her panties against his jeans, his body already reacting with much vigor to her invitation. A man, a woman, tequila and sex.

Reasoning, reasons, reason, all was lost to the animalistic, primal need to reach the origin of things. To free their skin and instinct in a mutual quest for peace. This peace that had escaped their grasp for so long that this unexpected encounter was welcomed unquestioningly. All fermented pineapples aside. Almost.

He reached for the buttons of her blouse. Her chest heaved with expectation. He broke the kiss an instant, watching her, his eyes as dark as desire. She felt he was hesitating. Would he stop? He could not stop. Not now. Suddenly, he grabbed the light fabric and cracked it open. Gasping, she saw in him the quintessential male asserting his territory and accepted his claim, offering him her lips. Wanting more of it, of him. Ready to give in, to give up on everything that was her, that was hers.

Yet, the injustice of the instant seized her when he unhooked her bra, tasting, testing her bare skin with his hands and tongue. Selfishly taking the pleasure of exploring her body without offering her the same opportunity in return. She pushed him back slightly, grabbing his t-shirt to remove it unceremoniously. The balance of power between them, far from being evened out by her gesture, emboldened him further. He grabbed her hair again, bringing her mouth to his, while resuming his exploration with his free hand. Her breasts, her stomach, hips, thighs all thoroughly surveyed by his expert touch. It made her ache for him, ask for more. Her hands wandering over his perfect body in response, retaliation even.

She tried to remember the name of each muscle contracting under her touch, but her memory failed her. She could only be aware of the growing wetness between her legs, as she pressed herself against his hardness, daring. Her defiance made him react instantly, and he seized her butt urgently to press her harder, encouraging her not to stop her slow, agonizingly sensual movements against him. The contact of her boiling skin with the cold metal of his belt buckle making her shiver, as she wrapped herself around him.

Unashamed, she provoked him in hope he would respond violently. Her new discovery about the man trapped between her thighs showing her how much she enjoyed feeling helpless. She, who had spent her life in control of every detail, was readily accepting to relinquish that control to that man, that unsuspected male man to whom she wanted to belong, body and...

Soon, the torment of this dance became unbearable and he reached for the warm, humid fabric of her panties. This contact and the reality of her arousal made him swallow. His blood pulsating in his veins, through every inch of his body, although he was quite certain the one region of which he was the most aware would probably burst soon if he did not end this torture. Steadily, he endeavored to remove, breach this last barrier between her innermost self and him. Their ragged breathing rhythmically accompanying his movements. The small cotton piece finally ending its journey on the floor of the bathroom.

She held back a moan, as her naked, wet self was pressed against his jeans again. The undeniable power emanating from him in need to be released. She could feel it, each of his pulsations increasing her arousal. She let him kiss, devour, please, hurt her all the same. He seemed omnipresent, omnipotent. His scent and touch overwhelming, his lips and tongue overpowering. Only one element missing to complete her.

She rapidly undid his belt buckle and reached for the zipper of his jeans, determined to free him of this unbearable prison of denim. When she slid her delicate palms inside, maintaining pressure between their aching skins, he grabbed her hands and removed them. Panic seized her an instant. Did he want to stop? He could not... He was removing his jeans, impatiently kicking them off without breaking eye contact with her. His gaze was so intense, primal. She shivered. He immediately closed this unwanted gap between them and claimed her lips again. His kisses voracious, passionate.

Feeling the tip of his penis pushing in through his underwear made her repress another moan, which could have easily mutated into a scream. This scream begging him to take her, to end this torture. God... he really knew his torture perfectly.

Suddenly, he lifted her in his arms and slammed them against the opposite wall. She panted. She knew it was going to happen. He lowered his hand to guide himself to her opening and she instinctively slid her hands in his boxers, pushing him toward her.

"What going on in th... Oh my God, I'm sorry!"

The door slammed back shut. Angela had come and gone in one half of a second.

The confusion of the instant forced reality on them both like a leaden weight. Their eyes wide open on the consequences of their strongest instincts opposed to their weakest convictions, they froze in this improbable position. Before she knew it, he had let go of her with a loud sight, gathering his clothes in an incomprehensible rapidity. She stood there, disconcerted, almost appalled to see him prepare an escape she did not understand.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, alarmed.

He did not answer, simply giving her the look of an injured animal decided to hide his way towards death. She suddenly felt the cold of her partial nakedness fall upon her, instinctively wrapping her arms around her chest. She saw her reflection in the mirror, her completely abandoned self, hair set loose, lips swollen from those feverish kisses, her skin pink from the irritation of his five o'clock shadow, her skirt clumsily falling on her upper thighs. She was a mess, alone, deserted after she had given the whole of her being. She bit her upper lip, hard.

"Booth?" her voice cracked.

He swallowed, now fully clothed, his hand already on the doorknob. He knew he was a damned coward, he knew he made no sense but he could not do this. It did not matter how the painful throbbing in his lower abdomen almost made him nauseous, it did not matter how much the faintest reminder of her being entirely in his control made him want to take what he knew belonged to him. It was not what he had asked for. It was not what he had come for. He had resisted during six long years to this unbearable need for her; leaving or not, he was a failure.

"I have to go," he uttered almost unintelligibly, before opening the door.

Her mouth dropped. He could not do this. He could not. When the door closed on her, she let herself slide against the wall, ending on the cold tiled floor. She hugged herself tightly, her throat aching from the flow of tears she tried to contain, in vain. He could not desert her.

It was three in the morning. She had taken a shower, then tossed and turned in her bed, then taken a bath, picked a book to read, put it back and picked another. But most of all she had watched her phone with intent focus. It would not ring. Against all odds, and she considered this was a purely biological process brought forth by her heavy secretion of hormones, she was still waiting for him to come back. She could not accept that he had deserted her in the worst of moments. She could not bring herself to read into his action and understand that this was irrevocable. She still hoped and she hated herself for it.

Maybe because she knew she had, once more, a large responsibility in the events that had taken place a mere four hours before. Maybe because she was some typically helpless female specimen submitted to the law of testosterone. He had, after all, secreted such an amount of it that she was more than likely still suffering from its effects. She could tell, for his presence, smell and unquestionable domination still made her respond with much force. Yes, four hours, a shower and a bath afterwards. He had that power on her, and she could not deny it anymore.

She had hesitated to call him, but had thought it would be incongruous, a tad of pride still preventing her from giving in and beg. She had never begged in her life, she would not start with him, no matter how natural it felt. She hated being a woman. She hated being herself.

It was three in the morning... A shower, some tossing and turning, another shower. Unbearable pressure in each of his limbs, he was still not over the incredible stupidity of his actions -all of them. He had gotten up and picked his remote control, turning on the television to watch some rerun of the latest hockey game. But most of all he had watched his phone with intent focus. It would not ring. Oddly, he could not bring himself to accept the fact that she would not call, although he was clearly responsible for the fiasco that had taken place a mere four hours before. He knew there was not a single reason for her to make that first step. He had been the one to take a step backwards. So that was how it felt, to do the rejecting, uh? That was not any better than being the victim. That was even worse.

He was conscious of what his actions had meant to her. She had surrendered herself, not in the way he had hoped she would, but she had. And he had run away. He had renewed the pattern. Why? Because it was not enough? Because he could not accept what she was able to give at that point? He knew he was screwed anyway. Had he taken what she had to offer he would have hated himself and her at the same time to have perpetuated that six year long dance. Fleeing or staying meant the same thing, it was destined to be a mess.

He hesitated before picking up his phone. There was no being proud after what he had done to her. He had to apologize and try to contain the possible damages his stupidity had provoked. He had never begged in his life, before her. He did not mind begging her again. It felt natural, in a way he could not fathom. His damned certainty that they belonged to each other, probably. That with her, there was nothing he could not do.

He speed dialed her number and realized he had never memorized it. It had been years, she had become "speed dial 2" on his phone. There was Parker, of course, then her. Before her, he tried to remember who had been second on his speed dial... It was his grandfather. He had become speed dial 3, but certainly would not mind if he knew who had stolen his position. She had become that important in his life. That important, that soon. He wondered an instant if he was a speed dial number too for her. Then it rang and his heart started pounding too hard for him to think properly.

"Bones? Don't hang up please!" he said urgently.

She had barely picked up the phone. Picked up was a euphemism for jumping on it and nearly breaking her back in the process. Why would he think she would hang up? So she was supposed to be mad at him? Maybe she should try to force herself.

"Why would I hang up? I just picked up."

He frowned to himself, "I just thought... Never mind. I called to apologize. For... everything that happened tonight I just... All the... you know. All the drinking, and... kissing. And leaving, too."

She swallowed. Of course he would do this. Maybe he would take it back too. It would certainly be a whole lot more difficult to obliterate actions than words. This was why she had always favored actions to words, they had substance. If he took it back, now she would have no trouble being mad.

"Why are you apologizing?" she asked defensively.

He found himself taken aback. Why was he apologizing, really? Because he was a cowardly shit? Most likely. Because he was a chauvinistic bastard? Certainly. That seemed enough to him.

"Well, because! I... I didn't treat you right!"

_You mean leaving like a thief?_

"If by that you imply you should not have left, I concur," she stated, firmly.

He closed his eyes, of course she was going to ask for the obvious.

"I meant that and the rest too."

"I don't understand."

She seemed serious. He could even see the face she was probably making just then. Usually he loved her focused, smart ass face playing dumb, but just now, he was not patient. Maybe that was his problem. He was not patient. Sort of ironic for a damned sniper. He sighed.

"I meant the way I manhandled you, Bones. I'm sorry."

"I'm not!" she exclaimed a little too fast.

_Try to sound more domestically enthusiastic, Temperance, please. Really._He stuttered, "Wh... I... Well... Still. I'm... I don't... I don't do that usually."

"Really? I had always pictured you to be sexually assertive," she paused, realizing once more she had confessed more than she had intended. Words are not as consistent as actions, uh? She cleared her throat, gathering her courage. "I mean, I felt comfortable with it because it felt very _you_."

He could not suppress a chuckle at that somehow angelic confession. _Angelic? Talking about me doing all that? Wow sure_. Plus he had never been under the impression that he was giving the image of a "sexually assertive" male or something. Was he? If she knew he felt proud, she would probably wipe his smile off his face with an incisive comment. But that was _him_, after all, the cockiness and everything. No? He suddenly remembered a comment she had made, long ago about his being _him_.

"You mean it's _Boothy_?"

_Exactly_.

She smiled, not only in response to his comment but also because she could feel him turn on the charm. Since when had she developed the ability to identify his reactions from his tone? A long time, it seemed. Yet it was the first time she realized it. It made her feel strangely happy. A foreign, pleasant sensation. It disturbed her.

"It's Boothy," she repeated contemplatively.

A second of silence later, Booth started to panic.

"Bones?"

"Yes, sorry I was... thinking."

"Shocking," he chuckled.

"It disturbs me that you could regret what happened. It is not coherent with what you expected from us before. I just, I have troubles making the connection."

_Great, how can I make that connection clear to her when it's not clear to me?_"I don't _regret_ what happened. It's just that... Look, if I listened to myself I would most likely come over right now and finish what we started."

She shivered.

"But it's not... It's not that, you and me. You know it." He paused. "I want you. I don't think there was a damned day I didn't since we met. But I just can't. I can't just..." He searched for the most powerful term he could find, "I can't just take you. You understand?"

"Why?" she whispered, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. "I want you to." Her heart was pounding. "I want to give you this. I _can_ give you this."

He swallowed at this new confession. If this was one of the Herculean tasks, he would most likely end up in hell. "I want more," he stated with honesty. "I want more than your body, Bones. I want..." _What_ do_ I want?_ "I want who you are, what you do."

She pondered an instant, listening to his erratic, nervous breathing. She wished he knew what that meant to her to give him her tangible self. What step it was. She found herself denying all she had learned and believed. Giving herself literally was taking a figurative meaning she had never suspected. But it seemed it was not enough anymore, because she had spent years putting all her might into the desacralization of an act he had always considered holy. This seemed like an ironically deserved punishment for her. She felt she needed to make amend, one way or another. One way...

"I'll give you the letter," she suddenly blurted out.

This was who she was, what she did. What she concealed too. What she could not offer as easily as her tangible self.

He cleared his throat, what could he possibly answer to that? She was not opposing any resistance and it was the first time. Well, the second time in one evening.

"Thank you."

_Thank you? Seriously, Seeley? Shut the hell up._Another silence. But this time it was not his turn to speak, right? Or maybe the basic conversational rules did not apply, but he felt like the first damned guy who ever talked on the phone and certainly did not have much to say. He wondered what that conversation might have been and chuckled.

"What?" she asked, alarmed.

_Crap. I said shut the hell up, Seeley, but on the phone it might not be... yeah, shut up. _

"I was just wondering what the first two guys who talked on the phone could have said to each other. That must have been awkward..."

"The first sentence ever uttered on the phone was Alexander Graham Bell talking to his assistant Thomas Watson, who was in the adjoining room. They did not have a real conversation though, they were testing the efficacy of their liquid transmitter." she stated.

He smiled, of course she would know.

"What did they tell each other?" he pursued, desperate to have her relax.

"Bell said 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you'. This was in a spirit of scientific inquiry since, they could actually hear each other perfectly from where they were standing."

He chuckled again.

"What?" she asked a once more. This time intrigued.

"You don't think it's funny that two guys standing next to each other would call each other to... see each other?"

She smiled at his deliberate goofiness.

"Booth..."

She loved his goofiness.

"I'm sorry," he snorted, now sincerely amused. He was probably more nervous than anything else, but this unexpected outlet made him feel suddenly much more inspired. He took a breath to calm himself. "Can you read it to me?" he then let out, hopeful. Mostly hopeful she would not ask him what he was talking about, or simply refuse.

"Read you what?"

_Of course. That's one out of two. What are the odds, uh?_"The letter."

"No."

_I don't even know why I stopped gambling if I'm that good._"Please?" he insisted, taking a boyish tone.

He had no idea of where his playfulness could come from after all that had happened during the past hours, but he blamed the two dorks playing with their homemade phones in adjoining rooms. Mostly what he and Bones were doing, except that the rooms were metaphorical and that he was done playing. Or not. Or maybe he was still drunk. Well, not really. He could not even use that excuse.

She sighed, "Why?"

She always had so many questions. Sometimes it felt like being with Parker. Why, how, when, what... And he had so little answers. He just wanted her to read it. He wanted to hear the words. He wanted it to come from her. Would that be enough to convince her?

"Because I don't want to wait..."

_Good enough?_"I can come over now and give it to you, if you prefer."

_Not good enough._"At 3 am?" he asked, saving time to try and find a better excuse.

"Nearly 4 am now. But I don't mind, really," she stated matter-of-factly.

He made a face. _Really?_"I'd rather you read it to me, _really_," he mimicked.

She was at loss. Why was it so important to him? Was he mocking her? If the latter seemed highly unlikely, she wondered once more why there were so many things to complicate their relationship, if that was the proper definition for what they had.

She sighed again.

"Why is it so important that I read it?"

_I don't want to. I have never been able to read it to myself._

"Because," he began, trapped. "I... I need to hear you say it. It's... It's ours, you know? It's not mine."

She instantly remembered the first time he had used this pronoun. A simple pronoun with so many implications. There was nothing tangible in it, nothing reliable and yet a little 'ours' was capable of unsettling her. How could he say it that easily? Because it was Booth, probably. Another _Boothy_ thing... She felt challenged; if he could say that, she could read that letter. This was who she was, if that was what he wanted to see. She was not one to turn down a challenge -most of the time. Not this time anyway.

"Alright," she gave in.

He took a breath, in anticipation.

"Thanks."

_I'm getting more and more original by the second..._But he knew he could not express fully what it meant to him. He could not if he wanted to actually obtain what he had sickened for all day. The idea of disappointment did not graze him once, for he know she would not attach such importance to meaningless words. That was not who she was. He knew who she was, that was why he wanted it, wanted her.

When he heard her clear her throat, he instinctively gripped the arm of his couch. Just as though this ride in the unknown would be eventually more... more everything than what he had already experienced with her.

"I can't find it," she said nervously.

He could hear her move things around, she was not lying.

"Where was it the last time you saw it?"

"In my nightstand drawer," she said, annoyed to be forced to confess yet another of these dirty little secrets she had no idea were dirty until tonight.

He swallowed.

"Maybe you threw it out..." he suggested, trying to appear casual.

"Are you trying to make me say something, Booth?" she frowned.

_What do you think, Bones, uh?_

"I don't know, maybe."

"I would never have done that," she was earnest, basically turning her drawers upside down. "Is this what you wanted to hear?" she added sarcastically.

_Not with that tone, but yeah..._"Found it yet?"

He wished he had not sounded sarcastic either, but she had started it, right? And he was a damned overgrown dorky preadolescent. Sort of common knowledge though.

"Shit," she said to herself, as he heard a loud thud. She had broken one of her bedside lamps.

"You okay, Bones?"

"Yeah, I just... Look, can I call you back when I find it? This would be much more practical if I had both hands to do that..."

The equivocal nature of her comment made him swallow again. He had a pretty clear cut memory of what she could do with both her hands.

"Uh, I... yeah, sure," he stuttered.

"Okay, I'll call you right back," she concluded before hanging up.

He remained motionless for an instant, phone still literally plugged to his ear, waiting like an idiot. Stunned. Listening to the incessant beeping that meant he had maybe lost all opportunity to have her open up. He wondered an instant if she had willfully used that comment to make him lose focus and take the upper hand. This was a possibility, despite her characteristic bluntness. Nah, she was not blunt. Hell she was not. She had never been. She was a smart ass playing dumb. And she would not call back.

He panicked.

Maybe he should be the one calling back? Yeah, right. She had hung up. And she had reminded him that five painful hours prior, they had been doing things naked together in a totally naked way. If that meant anything. How could the memory be that powerful all this time later? He glanced at his crotch.

_Crap... Seriously?_And started reciting the names of each team-members of the Flyers to have won the Stanley Cup since 1973, cursing himself to be unable to focus on what was supposed to matter. He was supposed to have... evacuated the tension. Yeah, right, you don't evacuate six years of repressed desire like that, especially not when you tasted the product before leaving the store without buying it. Yeah, lousy metaphor. Difficult to focus. Why wasn't she calling back? It was a letter, not a needle in a hay stack.

He got up to get himself a glass of water, not once thinking of putting the phone down. But determined not to pick up at the first ring. He was that girlish tonight. A girlish guy with a mannish mind in the dirtiest gutter you could find.

After five minutes, he started to lose patience, pacing around his apartment like a caged lion. He glanced at his phone every ten seconds with furrowed brows, as though trying to magically make it ring. She would not call back. He had to accept it and do what he had said he would do from the beginning, move on.

Well, go to bed, to begin with.

But that little voice kept telling him to wait. Again. Still. He would have preferred it be a hallucination of sorts, he could have dismissed it. But that was him talking. His goddamned, noisy, nosy heart. That heart of his, that 'open-heart', like she said; battle sore, bruised, scarred but which would not give up even when he had.

Another ten minutes passed. He had turned off the television, pathetically afraid that he might not have heard the ringing while he was in the kitchen, then remembering that damned phone had not left his side a second. He gave it a millionth glance. Maybe he should call. Maybe she had hurt herself. He pressed speed dial.

It rang. And rang. And rang again.

Now he was seriously panicking. Something had happened. He raced to his bedroom, searching for his jeans, when he heard a knock on his front door.

_No way. She did not._

He sighed. Of course she had. It was _Bones_.

When he opened, he saw her tiny, fragile frame, nervously shifting on her feet. Always avoiding his gaze. And in her pajamas too, he noticed. He could not suppress a smile. She extended her right hand, in which she was holding a folded piece of paper.

"Here," she let out, almost inaudibly.

He reached for it, but as he saw she was already turning around to escape, he caught her wrist.

"Bones, wait."

For the first time she looked at him. She should have called back, she thought. Coming here was a bad idea. The phone had the advantage of preventing direct contact, and she had forgotten that element when she had read this letter a few minutes before, unsure she would be able to say it all out loud. What was worse? Those words, or his touch?

"Booth, please," she almost whined.

He desperately searched for something that would convince her to stay, if not to read that letter out-loud. He wondered if he even had a right after what he had done the preceding evening. But he could not prevent himself, he did not want her to go.

"Stay," he begged. "We could... We could have breakfast."

She frowned, "It's barely 5 am."

"Yeah, well, we're both awake and I think we had our share of alcohol already." He winced at his own silly words.

She pressed her lips together, rapidly reviewing the situation, then nodded. As long as he did not ask her to read that thing... She did not want to go. He invited her in, now noticing she had not even put on shoes, but had come in slippers. He chuckled.

"What?" she asked.

He pointed at her tiny feet, still smiling.

"Oh," she had not even paid attention to what she was wearing. "That explains why I had a lesser control over my brake pedal..." she reflected.

He gave her a patronizing look. Then realized that he was the cause of this confusion and felt a familiar sense of guilt invade him. He had no right to lecture her. But he could not help it, no matter what was happening between them, she was his responsibility. She was... his. Even if she was not.

"Don't do that again, Bones. Seriously. I don't want to receive a call telling me you're at the hospital because you forgot to put on a pair of shoes."

His tone startled her. What did it have to do with anything?

"I'd appreciate it if you quit lecturing me as if I were a child," she snapped at him defensively.

"Well then quit acting like one!" he retaliated instantly.

He had not wanted this. Why was everything between them systematically going the wrong way? Why was he unable to control himself? Literally. It seemed that was the 'heart' of the matter. The dam had broken, and now he could not control himself anymore. Every emotion was raw and painful. His passion, his hatred, his fears and doubts. And he would take it out on her because it seemed it was all her fault. No matter how much he knew it was his fault as well.

"_I'm_ acting like a child?" she said harshly, "If I am, then I would be curious to know how you qualify your own attitude! You're the one who left without a word!"

"I left because I wanted to do the right thing for us!" he shouted.

"No!" she matched his tone. "You left because you're a coward!"

He swallowed. The truth of her comment made him uncomfortable, but his rage took over.

"Who's the coward here, Bones? Who is? You are! You're the one who's afraid of everything!" he said, instantly regretting it.

They were both right, and they had been both wrong to play the other's game. They knew it but it was too late. They had retaliated, as usual, in a war of words that had too much weight to be simply set aside. They could not step back anymore. Words had become more tangible than actions. This certainty made Bones dizzy. She had to do something to prove him wrong. To show him that his words did not matter. That words did not matter. That actions were predominant in her world.

"_I'm_ afraid?" She seized the letter from him. "I came here. I came. I came to give this to you," she blurted out. She tore it in two. He didn't move. "There! You have it!" she shouted, throwing the pieces on the floor.

He stood there, like she had hours before in her bathroom. Completely lost and confused. Staring at the two pieces of torn paper discarded on the floor. Swallowing, he reached for them and went to his kitchen to throw them in his garbage can.

**To Be Continued...**

You're probably exhausted after this LONG chapter, but think about how exhausted WE are and give us a little seomthing too, ok? If you still want more :D! Tell us! (Of course we won't let you down now! Or will we? :p)


	7. Let's Fail All the Way

**A.N.:**** Here you go, dear readers and DEAREST reviewers. This is the final chapter. Good luck figuring out who wrote what, as we took turn writing parts for this one.  
There's M-RATED stuff in there, too, so you've been warned.**

**The show might not go that exact route, we are aware of that. But we strongly believe that the underlying stuff will be the same. And if it does, well, then we can call ourselves psychics! Hahaha**

**Thanks to all of you for your wonderful support. It hasn't gone unnoticed, that's for sure!**

**Ok, well.... read slowly! It's another epic-ly long chapter.**

Chapter 7  
LET'S FAIL ALL THE WAY

He had spent the past two hours struggling with himself. His bed was a mess, he had kicked his covers, put them back on, thrown his pillows. He had tried to understand what rage had pushed them both to unleash hell onto the other. He remembered what kind of ordeal they had undergone six years before; how their mutual desire for the other and its subsequent frustration had pushed them to look for a frontal shock at the slightest occasion. But this time he knew it was different. It was not just sex. It was what it meant. What it implicated. This time he had been the one refusing it because his vital need for her skin, her scent, was balanced by his primal fear that it would swallow him in the chaos of unfulfillable expectations.

The thought of the torn pieces of paper thrown in his garbage can came to haunt him again; another unfulfilled expectation. He realized he had been the architect of his own hell. He realized he should have taken what she offered instead of protecting what he would never have. She had offered herself body and soul and he had taken nothing of it. He had _refused_ it.

He got up with a sigh. A throbbing headache reminding him that his lack for sleep would be accompanied by a solid hangover, last visible trace of a lost battle. He was his own casualty, the only soldier down and unlikely to recover.

When he reached his kitchen, he eyed the garbage can once, then endeavored to make himself some coffee. He eyed it twice, before searching for some aspirin. And again. Each time wondering how long this circus would last, already certain he would give in. But as any good soldier, he was ready to resist some more despite the suffering. Despite the inevitability of his fate. So he went showering. His third shower in a little more than 5 hours. Then he got dressed, shrugging as he saw the tie Catherine had offered to him a mere week before. If she knew what happened last night...

He realized he did not care. He had not been cheating on her, he had been cheating on Bones _with _her. That was the reality of this already failed pretence of a relationship. What would he do about it? He had no idea. He wondered if unfulfillable expectations were better than the phantom of a relationship. A ghost replacing another ghost.

When he returned to the kitchen, ready for work, he pressed his lips together, trying to resist some more and rolled his eyes at himself before opening the garbage can and reaching for the pieces of paper. He took a breath, placing both pieces on his coffee table, discerning the neat writing of his partner. He swallowed. It felt like touching the most intimate part of her... The most valuable too. Her heart. Fragile, broken. Crushed, as she would say.

_Booth,_

_I am sorry to write this to you. I am sorry to think that you won't find me in time. I know you are trying, I am trying too. But I guess sometimes trying is not enough. I am afraid. I traded with death my whole life (if I daresay) and now that the time has come for me I just don't want to. I cannot even ask you if it has an underlying meaning._  
_I suppose it is normal for me to want to live, right? I just... There are so many things that I want to do. Silly things, when I come to think of it. You would laugh at me if you heard them. I want to sleep in late. I never did it. Or eat in my bed. I want to drive a supersonic plane. Just for the rush of noradrenalin. I want to read_ Little Women_ because it was my mother's favorite novel. I want to learn how to play guitar like Russ does. I want you. I want you to want me too. I always thought I would have time. I pushed things away because I thought there would be time. There is no more time. What do I do?  
You remember when you said, you and I, this was going somewhere? What did you mean? What does it mean today? I suppose it does not mean anything anymore. I hope it did. Not that it would change anything. But you should just know. I am sorry to have thought it meant nothing then._

_I am sorry._

_Your partner,_  
_Bones_

When he finished reading, he shut his eyes tightly. He leaned back in his couch. So that was fate? That was the ironic path through life made of cross-roads and dead ends. Of mistakes and regrets. Of questions unanswered, questions never asked. He had never asked her. No more than she had asked him. They had assumed all along, that this was for the best. He had assumed all along that this was the only solution. He had accepted that she would belong to him in an incomplete, fragmented way and she had accepted to give that much of herself. He had protected her from herself while she had protected him from herself, too? What sense did that make?

He let out a bitter chuckle at the irony of it all.

Would they stop protecting each other from themselves at some point? Would it end? He had no idea. He had tried. It had not worked. She had tried. He had refused to see it. Where were they now? How many more times would they have to push each other before falling off the edge? He felt lost. Lost in a certainty that made no sense. He still wanted her. Despite the misunderstandings, the incomprehensible wait and their undeniable incompatibility. Precisely because of all these things, in reality. There was no being compatible with someone who completed him. There was no sparing himself the torture of wait when she represented his quest. There was no pleasure in the ease of understanding someone whose peculiarity fascinated him and surprised him every day. This letter was another proof of that fact.

He had waited six years for her. He had been incapable of discerning her expectations. He had never realized what a better man of him she had made. Now he wanted to try, more than ever before. Although he had no idea how. Although he knew they were already broken. They were at another cross-road, they were at cross-purpose. He wondered if their fates would finally meet somewhere in the middle of all this.

..........

For the first time in over five years, Booth wasn't looking forward to going to work. He was dreading it, he realized, entering the Jeffersonian. He tried to forget about everything, but it was no use, as he quickly gathered. He knew everyone knew what he... what _they_ had almost done –merely 7 hours ago- the instant they all laid eyes on him. His exit from her place last night was a blur. He vaguely remembered bumping into Sweets on his way to the front door and hearing something that sounded like, _Whoa! What happened?_ But nothing more. Not really. Not about that anyway.

Everyone stopped talking the minute their eyes locked. Booth realized he had never quite grasped the full definition of the word 'awkward' until then, when he opened his mouth to say something irrelevant and she quickly averted his eyes to turn around and head to her office.

"I feel you, man," Hodgins told him, empathically, an open hand on his shoulder.

Booth shot him a look. "I'd rather you didn't." And Hodgins, wide-eyed, immediately took his hand off of him and turned to Cam.

"You ok, big guy?" Cam asked.

He didn't respond. Instead he bluntly asked, "Where are we on the... uhm..." He couldn't even remember what.

Cam, who knew him too well, cut him short to give him a break.

"The report is on my desk, I'll get it for you."

And she left with a knowing smile.

Booth was looking towards Brennan's office. Was she going to stay there all day? Was he supposed to reach out again? Was he supposed to... tell her he had read the letter? Tell her... Angela walked by and gave him a weird, cryptic look before going into her best friend's lair.

"Look, I know you hate to talk to me about anything, but... I saw you, man," Hodgins threw at him.

"What?" Booth turned to him, annoyed beyond reason.

"Last night. I saw you."

"You saw me wh..." Booth abruptly stopped talking. _No way._ He started panicking. There was no way this was happening.

"Yeah," Hodgins explained. "I was out getting a CD from my car, and I saw you get in yours."

_No. No. No. No._

Booth was just standing there. He had never been more mortified in his entire life.

"Please, tell me you didn't drive home in that state."

"Wh..."

Booth just frowned. What was he talking about?

"You got into your car, and I got my CD and I wanted to call you a cab, but I forgot once I went upstairs. Tell me you didn't drive off that drunk."

Booth started breathing again. So he _hadn't_ seen. He let his shoulders relax.

"I called a cab myself," he reassured him.

"Good."

Yeah... Good wasn't exactly the word Booth used to describe it. That moment, before the cab had taken him home? _Not_ good.

------------------- 7 HOURS 17 MINUTES EARLIER -------------------

Out of breath, he reached his car, sat and slammed the door. He buried his face into his hands. _Shit._ He had run out of there. He had run out on her. He took a deep breath and grabbed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He wasn't going to drive home. He just needed to hide for a while. And there was no way he would get into a cab with an erection as painful as this. He felt dizzy as flashes of so-very-recent memories came rushing in. Her open legs around him, her uninhibited wetness against him. His hand was caressing his thigh when he realized what he was about to do. What he _had_ to do. He closed his eyes again, tried to slow his breathing. He thought of church, old people, oranges. He pushed away every single one of her sighs, sighs she had moaned sweetly into his ears, onto his neck, into his mouth.

He grabbed the wheel with both hands again. He didn't want to do this. Oh, he had _done_ this a million times. He was a man, he wasn't ashamed of it, as long as it stayed private. But this _now_? It was so very wrong. He knew he had to do something, though. Because thoughts alone wouldn't help him relax this time.

His mind still very much blurred from alcohol, he found himself repeating what she had done, five long minutes ago. He parted the ends of his already undone belt, undid the button of his jeans and unzipped them. He couldn't undo what he had done. He didn't really want to. He just wanted to press pause and yell 'what the hell is happening here?!' He saw her eyes flutter open, letting him see her expectations. Expectations she would never verbalize. Expectations he would never be able to fulfill until she did. He saw her cheeks, flushed with exultation. And when he heard her sharp intake of breath, he brought both hands to his face. _Make this stop._

He knew he couldn't physically stay in this state forever. He _had_ to just... calm down. Force himself down. Calling saints didn't help. Neither did the deep breathing and the pinching himself in the arm. He tried picturing himself watching football, but she came in and stood in front of the TV.

... ...

Fine! He'd do it. He'd jerk off in his car parked in front of her apartment! Frustrated, ashamed, angry at himself. He decided to get it over with and tried to think of nothing. He tried his best. But every time he consciously tossed her image away, she came back with new moves. Moves that had actually _happened._ Her tongue, so very febrile. He bit his lower lip. Her throat, begging for his mouth with the deepest, the sweetest gasps. He stroked faster. Her breasts, so round, so full, asking for him in perfect harmony with her scattered voice whimpering his name. He thrust his hips upward. Her feverish, trembling fingers sliding down... His right hand stopped moving, his eyes flew open, he threw his head back.

Bones had been right. He was great at torture. He _was_ hard evidence. He laughed at his pathetic self and, with a sigh, allowed his mind to go back to her. And she released him.

..........

Brennan gathered all the files they had gone over for Caroline. She would need them for court today, and she didn't intend on being lectured again on proper trial prep. _I'm not a child!_

Sighing again, she blamed Booth –only for a second and a half- for coming in early. She had thought they'd all meet in court today. She didn't _need _another confrontation. She didn't _need _to know if he had read the letter or not. She didn't _need _to know what he thought about it. She didn't _need_ him to remind her of what had happened in her bathroom merely –she looked at her watch- 7 hours ago. It felt like years ago. Felt like 5 minutes ago. It felt, that's it.

Started, she jumped as Angela discreetly walked in.

"Hey, sweetie..."

"No," Brennan interrupted her.

A little stunned, but not completely taken aback, Angela tried again.

"You've got to tell me wha..."

"I don't _have_ to do anything," she spat out a little too abruptly, maybe. "Not now. I want to be ready for court."

Angela crossed her arms over her chest and nodded, keeping her eyes on her.

"I understand," she said, softly. "Ok. Well..." Right before she turned around to leave, she added, "I'll be here for you, when you're done pushing me away." And she left.

..........

Like the preceding day, she avoided eye contact with him, lost in thoughts as she stared out of the window while they crossed the busy streets of D.C., on their way to court. But this time he knew he was the one responsible for her silence. There was no threatening a journalist over the phone to make up for that uncomfortable, laden weighted silence. There was no asking her how was her day, much less if she had a hangover or if she had made her way home safely in her slippers after having stormed out of his place at dawn. This was too much. And yet this was nothing. He had promised himself when he had read the letter that he would not let cross-purposes and cross-roads make him feel lost and look for the right direction. He had decided that he would move forward, blindly, advancing fearlessly and take what was to be taken. But there seemed to be nothing left to take. Maybe she already had given it all.

Maybe she was afraid he had read the words and thought nothing of them. More questions, less answers. Reading into her soul had not been that helpful, thus. It had simply helped him realize there was no escaping her. Because there was no better than her. He was stuck. But at least he knew it was pointless to struggle with it. He had called Catherine to apologize for his behavior and his double cancellation. Then he had explained, laconically, that this was not the right time for him. That it would be unfair to make her lose her time and energy on something that would lead nowhere. She did not ask anything. She gracefully accepted her fate, and that was it.

He was back in that no-place, waiting for these unfulfillable expectations to be fulfilled. Waiting for her to see something he could not show. Something he could not word. Something that was hanging out there, waiting to be taken. His pathetically inalienable, irrevocable, undying love for her.

He glanced at her rapidly, before turning on the radio. He needed this silence to be filled. News, debates, talk and talk. He frowned, searching for some music. He did not want to think. If Bones heard him she would probably tell him this would not change him much.

He recognized a tune from the 90s and decided to settle for it. The Pretenders, right? Right.

_So if you're mad, get mad, don't hold it all inside, come on and talk to me now..._

He glanced at her again, wondering if she had picked up on the words, but she was still staring out of the window absently.

..._When you're standing at the crossroads, and don't know which path to choose, let me come along, 'cause even if you're wrong, I'll stand by you..._He nervously switched the station, cursing God silently. More talk, news, weather. Music. What was that? Elton John? Whatever. It seemed neutral.

..._You're all I've ever needed, baby you're the one..._

Or not neutral. He switched again, wondering if he would have to settle for Gangsta rap to avoid any type of bad surprise. But Elvis was faster than him.

_...For I can't help falling in love with you._He frowned, quite certain his sensation of persecution was perfectly justified. Or that any cheesy love song could apply to his pathetic situation. When he reached for the radio once more, he heard Bones sigh.

"Will you make up your mind already?" she asked, clearly annoyed.

Taken aback, he settled for the next station, feeling like a chastised child. The irony of her comment adding to the improbable pressure he thought fate was exercising on him at that instant. He did not even like the song that was now playing. What was that? George Michael? It was much too 1980s...

She had ignored his restlessness at first, then she had gotten annoyed, certain he was trying to gain her attention. She did not want to talk. What would she say anyway? How is your day so far? Do you have a hangover? How bad was your erection when you left me naked in my bathroom? Did you read the letter I threw in your face? She had pushed too far already to add to it. And for her to be aware of her limits meant she had most likely been over the top. It did not mean she did not _want_ to know. She had questions; so many of them. But she would not ask. The lyrics of the song she wasn't even listening to made their way to her.

..._I knew you were waiting, I knew you were waiting for me!_

She frowned, wishing she actually knew that. Wishing he was still waiting. Wishing she had known he had been waiting all along. _Stupid radio._ She turned it off. Without a glance his way, she looked outside the window again.

..........

It had been a week since the trial. When they had gotten the call that morning, she knew she wouldn't be working at her full potential. And she had been right. She had been distracted the whole time he had gone through the crime scene and she had examined the remains.

Ok, yes. She had blurted it out. She had told him about the important dig opportunity in the Maluku Islands. She had no idea what she expected from him. More, that's for sure.

She poured herself a cup of coffee.

It wasn't like she had wanted to threaten him or anything, but yes. Maybe she had expected some kind of reaction. Which he had not given her.

She grabbed the sugar.

Had she expected him to laugh it off, like he did when he was nervous about something, and say, "Why are you even talking about this, Bones? You know you're not going anywhere!"? She didn't know.

She grabbed the spoon.

He had mentioned something about a sniper instructor position being shoved down his throat by the Rangers. But after saying how they were trying to guilt him into 'doing his duty for his country', he had gotten angry and stopped talking about it. So she had no idea what any of that meant.

"Sweetie?"

Brennan jumped slightly and turned to her friend who had appeared out of nowhere. She smiled. It felt forced, but probably didn't show.

"Something wrong?" Angela pressed on, walking towards her.

"Why would you think that?"

Brennan stirred her beverage. Booth had been weird all day, too.

"You put 5 sugars in there."

She looked down at her cup, content still swirling around.

"Is this how they drink their coffee in Indonesia?" Angela continued.

"Indonesia is currently the fourth largest coffee producer in the world."

"Oh. Ok. Yes. That's a great reason to go there for a year."

Brennan frowned. And left.

..........

Brennan followed Booth into the Founding Fathers. Anxiety followed her. This had always been a place where she was at ease. But, right now, they weren't sitting at their usual table, and it didn't feel right. With what was hanging over their heads... She knew they weren't going to mention that either. Or she hoped they wouldn't. Yet another thing she didn't want to think about.

She had taken three sips of beer already. She was holding the bottle so much that it was now warmer than cool. Her eyes settled on their usual table, a few feet away from them. It was empty. The thick blanket of silence tightened around them. Until she couldn't stand it anymore. Why did he insist on coming here with her if all they did was sit and sulk?

"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, light and detached.

"I don't know... things. As we normally do. We never lacked for conversation topics." _Before._

_Normall__y_. That was a strange word to them now. She wracked her brain trying to find something. Something normal. Something that wouldn't push them further apart. She could barely reach out to him as it was.

Somewhere in the bar, a glass fell to the floor and shattered noisily to pieces. People started applauding. Brennan frowned and tried to see what other people were seeing.

"I didn't know there was a spectacle here, tonight."

Booth snorted.

"Someone broke a glass, Bones. That's all."

"If it was an accident, why are they all clapping?" she contradicted him with a smile, head tilted, eyebrows up, certain that she was right.

"It's ironic. It's what people do. You make a fool out of yourself, everyone cheers, and you look like an even bigger idiot."

"It's mean," she stated.

"Yeah, well... Humans are mean, Bones."

She looked at him, all dark and gloomy, wondering if he would ever be happy again. She missed him more than words could say.

"I wonder what it's like to own a bar like this one," she blurted out, content with her choice of neutral topic.

He instantly thought about his coma dream, "I think I know the feeling..." He smiled.

She bit her lips. Ok, so that wasn't so neutral. Nothing was neutral anymore, she realized.

They really had never talked about how weird it was that her book had somehow seeped through his brain during those four excruciatingly long days.

"I remember," he said pensively, "that it was really cool... We rocked..."

She smiled shyly. "We did."

In that book, she had been complete. She had been able to rid herself of everything that was pulling her apart right now. She had written a version of herself, THE only version of herself that could ever have made Booth happy. She didn't want to go there. But she did.

"Maybe... what you said, maybe it's because of that dream."

He frowned, "What I said?" When he understood when she meant, he swallowed. No. She would not say that. She could not. "No, Bones. I..."

"It's possible!" she insisted.

The door was now wide open. And he was going to walk blindly through it again.

"It doesn't matter how in love with you I was in that dream. I felt this way with you before that; long before. I can even tell you when and how. It has nothing to do with it."

His words hit her straight to the core. She knew this conversation had to happen. She knew it was the only way to go, now. But she was still surprised at how swiftly it had come up again. She shook her head. She didn't want to cry again. Every time she thought about his confession, she felt lost. Pressured. Deeply stuck. Unable to move or breathe.

"Do you know why?" she asked, her voice cracking even though she was whispering.

He took a breath. "You wanna know why? I'll have to explain how and when too."

She shook her head again, more slowly and averted his eyes. "Maybe we shouldn't," she muffled.

"Maybe," he said disappointed. If she knew exactly what motivated his love, maybe then she would accept it

Why was she upset? She _wanted_ him to drop it. She didn't want him to explain. No, she did. She wanted him to explain. She just didn't want to have to ask. Awkwardly. Insisting.

"But if you want to talk about it..." she offered, unsure it was the right thing to do.

"I do," he answered, earnest, "But do you wanna hear it?" Then he sighed and massaged his forehead. "We've been there before."

His stare went through her. She felt naked. "You're right," she dropped.

He knew he should never have given a mild offer. Mild offers had led him there. So he reiterated, afraid, as usual, to scare her.

"No, I'm not. You need to know. I want you to know."

So grateful he had not taken her word for it, this time, she bit her lower lip and nodded.

"I want to know," she confirmed, brutally honest with herself.

He nodded in return. "Alright." He took a breath.

She put a hand on his arm.

"Booth, wait."

She quickly broken contact.

"What if I still..." She sat up straighter. "What if I still have the same answer for you? You shouldn't ask me again, because... what if..." She looked up at him. "I don't want to hurt you again. Not like that. Not ever."

"I don't care. You need to know." Of course he cared, but he hoped... He hoped that maybe it would still change despite her warnings. "When I say I love you... It's not out of the blue or out of a misconception born from that coma."

It was the first time he had used those words. Not that words really mattered at this point. Or maybe it was all that mattered. Her heart was aching in her chest.

"Then... where is it coming from?" she insisted on understanding. "I... You know me." Like, somehow, that should have been enough to stop him from loving her.

He frowned at her lack of self esteem, "Precisely, Bones... I know you." He paused, trying to find the right words. "It's instants, details... Like, the first time I saw you. The second I entered that classroom, I knew..." He paused again, not wanting to create any misunderstanding by using that word again. "Or at Cleo Heller's funerals, when you told me you wanted to help me. Or, that evening after the beauty pageant investigation... So many other moments. So many things that made you indispensable to me."

She didn't know what to respond to that. Because those moments between them, like the ones he had enumerated, they were the exact reason why he was that important to her too. The reason why she couldn't do this to them. Should she be saying this out loud?

"I remember those moments, too," she whispered. "They are special to me too. You're... you're my_ partner_," she said, insisting on that last word. "You're everything I have." Her voice got high pitched again. "I can't lose that. I can't do this to us. I love us. More than I like myself." There. She couldn't say any more.

He took a shaky breath, once more. He couldn't seem to find the right words to make her understand that being her partner meant loving her, to him. Always had.

"Booth, if you've always felt this way... why now? Why do you want to change everything now?"

He took her beauty in. He dried his palms on the fabric of his jeans before he could continue to explain. His voice was steady. Sure. Yet calm and soft. "The night I knew there was no... _not _loving you, it was that evening of the beauty pageant. We were eating those stale doughnuts. You were so... beautiful, and..." He smiled to the memory. "I realized then that nothing mattered more to me than being with you. Just, eating doughnuts or take outs and filling out paperwork. This was all I wanted to do. Because you were there, beautiful, intelligent, you. And you were mine. I wanted you to be mine. But I knew in a certain way you already were." He waited again for the words to sink in. "But at some point... After that coma dream... I knew that I wanted more. I had had more."

Fury gathered in her stomach. Hadn't he read her letter?

"Why didn't you say anything back then? Why did you draw a line, then? I was... I _would have_." She sighed. "But now you mean too much to me."

"I know," he chuckled bitterly. "I was afraid to scare you off. So I waited... As I said, you were mine, in a certain way. That was enough. I wanted you to trust me. To rely on me. And I got trapped in my own game, I guess."

"So, you manipulated me," she stated between her teeth. Angry.

"You think I _manipulated _you?" he frowns, "I tried to protect you!"

"All this time, you knew. And you _knew_ I felt this way too, and you manipulated me so I couldn't... That's not fair, Booth."

"But I _didn't know_!" he exclaims suddenly. He had known from the start this would not end well, he had just hoped... "I didn't know you felt _anything_! I wanted you to feel something! So I tried! Again and again, to make you trust me!"

"And I DID! And now you want to destroy everything!" She couldn't let go of the anger now. It was the only thing keeping her grounded. "And WHY would you date Catherine so quickly?! WHY? To manipulate me again?"

_Touché_, he thought, suddenly calming down.

"I'm not seeing her anymore," he confessed. "Now, if I wanted to manipulate you, I'd have told you that before."

"Why didn't you?"

The truth was... He didn't know. What he knew was that this 'relationship' had somehow put a wall between him and her, a protection shield, keeping them from having this conversation again.

"Why didn't you tell me you weren't seeing Hacker anymore?" he averted, putting the focus back on her.

Her breath got stuck. It had been so very easy to let Hacker out of her life. Right when Booth's lips had grazed hers in her bathroom... In that moment when she had so desperately needed him to take her, she knew she was being ridiculous to ever consider keeping this sham. Nothing, no one could ever protect her from Booth. Only _she_ could. But she couldn't tell him that. Because even though it had everything to do with him, it really didn't. She had let Hacker go for her own sake. To be true to herself for once.

She pursed her lips, still raging. Why was he doing this now? Why not years ago, when she didn't know she would care so much. When she didn't know what she could lose.

His heart squeezed painfully in his chest as he saw her eyes were starting to shine with tears.

"I waited Bones, for_ years_ before telling you. Because I knew how it would end, and it ended the way I thought it would. But you cannot blame me."

_Like hell I can't._

"I thought you were ready to hear it," he confessed. "You weren't. You aren't."

She bit down on her lips. Hard. Shaking her head, furious.

He started to get up, leaving a 20 dollar bill on the table.

She could feel the now too familiar sting of tears in her nose.

"You're gonna leave, just like that? You're just gonna give up on me again?!"

He pressed his lips together, his gaze intense. His voice should have sounded mad. But all that came across was exhaustion. Resignation. "What do you want me to do, Bones? Tell me, and I'll do it. I'll do anything. I would do anything if you would just let me in."

She brought her chin down. "I don't know. I don't know how." She was repeating herself.

He sighed.

"I _hate_ you right now," she confessed. "I _hate_ you for doing this to us." She looked at him again. "I _wanted_ this, Booth! Six, or three, or even two years ago. I would have given it a shot. But now..." She shook her head.

"That's the thing! I couldn't go there with you before, because we weren't solid enough!"

"But we're TOO SOLID now. It's too important to just..." She got up too. She wasn't going to do this anymore. Not in front of all those strangers. She dropped money on the table and grabbed her coat. She headed outside.

He followed her, and as soon as they reached the sidewalk, he got in her way.

"You think it's less important to me?" he urged her. Desperately. "You think you aren't the most important thing in my damned life?"

"I don't know! I don't know anything!" she almost yelled. "What do you expect me to say?! I TOLD you I couldn't do this. I TOLD you I loved you. I TOLD you I'm not good for you. I don't want to lose you and you keep pushing me. I can't anymore. I just can't." Her shoulders dropped. "I'll see you tomo... I'll see you."

"No! Dammit! Stop running away!" He planted himself in front of her again and grabbed both her upper arms. "I'll tell you something, and you can hate me all you want for it. But we never were just partners, Bones. Ever. I have loved you from day one."

"I have, too!" she let out. She let the tears she was holding back stream down her face.

It's like he wasn't even listening. She sniffled, bringing her fingers under her nose.

"Nothing that you consider to be important to us as partners means anything more than me loving you."

"You don't understand," she practically begged, shaking her head.

"Yes, I do!"

"No. You don't!"

"You think you'll lose us," he answered instantly.

"Well, if you understand then, why won't you let it go?"

"Because _you_ don't understand, Bones! You think you'll lose me as your partner? As a reliable, stable surrogate? I'm not a fucking surrogate!"

She felt like she had been hit by a bullet and reacted with a hint of desperation. She knew where this was going. And she was heading straight for it.

"I never said you were! You're the most important person in my life! I can't let you..." She grabbed his shoulders. He needed to understand. "I _LOVE_ you. And when you get tired of me, of all this, of me being cold and calculated and emotionally distant, you'll leave. And I won't have anything left. I won't have _anyone." And I don't want to be alone. Not anymore._

He took a breath, he knew her fears, but she was so imprisoned within it all that she wouldn't hear him.

"I never left. It's been 6 years. I'm your partner, and you don't want that to change. But what's the difference?! What's the difference in me loving you? I already did. I always did. Why are you so scared it'll ruin us if I tell you I have always loved you?"

"Because you don't know me!" she explained with everything she had. Her voice was total panic. "You don't know that side of me! I'm not good with intimacy. I'm not good at sharing things. They all leave because I push them away. And I don't want to end up watching you go. THAT'S the difference." Out of breath, she tried to calm her voice and repeated, "_That's _the difference."

"You think I don't know you? No one knows you better than me. No one on this fucking planet! I know every detail of you. And I love every detail. I know what you shared with me: you shared everything. I have been there every minute of your life for the past 5 years, and there is nothing I ignore. Nothing that could make me stop loving you either. Nothing."

There. It had finally happened. She was out of arguments. She had nothing left to refute. She had hit rock bottom. Part of her was so very grateful to him for having cornered her like this, away from her comfortable solutions of avoidance and rejection. Part of her was pissed as hell that he wouldn't let it go for _their_ sake. She was doing this for _them._ For him. For her. Mostly for her. Because if he chose to leave after he changed her for good, she would never be able to go back.

She breathed him in. "I'll think about it," she gave.

"No," he refused, grabbing her quickly. "There's no thinking about it. I want you to KNOW." His eyes were shimmering again. "I want you to stop doubting me. Stop doubting yourself!"

"I said, I'll _think_ about it. _PLEASE_."

He wanted her to choose now. He couldn't stay in limbo like this.

She couldn't make a rash decision.

"Booth, I just need time to think," she practically begged.

"What's there to think about?!" He really was fed up. "You either want me or you don't. It doesn't take your three doctorates to figure that out."

"Then I can't," she blurted out. She took a step back. "I said I was willing to think about it, that's all I can do. But no. You want more and more, and I... It's not my fault anymore," she sighed, slightly relieved. "It's all on you now."

That was it. She had shut him up. After a month of going around in circle, he finally understood.

"I guess we've spun and twisted this around as much as humanly possible. There's nothing left to say. You're not going to change your mind."

"No," she affirmed. Her voice was convincing. Her eyes weren't. He didn't look at her eyes.

"And I'm not either."

For a moment, she saw hope. Hope that she'd be able to think about it still. He had just said his feelings weren't going to change. But...

"So... I think you should take the position on the team going to Indonesia."

"What?"

"And I'll take that offer with the Rangers."

Her heart wasn't beating anymore. She was sure of it.

"But you said before that we could still work together," she insisted, in a tiny, dying voice, reminding him, twisting her freezing cold hands together before rapidly putting them back by her sides. "You agreed."

"I can't." He was done pretending. "I have to get away. This is... not good."

_It was good until you ruined it._

"Booth, no!" she huffed in a breath. She held on to his jacket with her fingers. He had just said he hadn't left in 6 years and that he never would. Hadn't she _just _heard that? "Our partnership, that's the reason I said no!"

"Then say YES!" he bellowed.

Agape.

No words.

No sound.

No breath.

Just emptiness.

She closed her mouth.

He watched her.

She looked down.

He turned around and left.

..........

Maybe she was slipping back into denial, as Angela would say, but Booth and she seemed to be working well together on this case. Yes, they still avoided any mention of anything that wasn't case-related, but she could work with that. At least they weren't silent. At least he was being silly at times again. At least he was smiling. At least she could pretend she didn't know he was trying so hard. Yes, the investigation was going slowly. They weren't really progressing; they hadn't any real leads about anything, but at least she was able to _not _think about what he had told her the night before. That they should go their separate ways for a while. No. She wasn't going to think about that. Because if she did, she'd think about how she didn't want him to be right. About how he was the one being ridiculous here. She'd think about... how she had said 'maybe', which was a big deal to her and which was all he had asked of her at first. About how 'maybe' didn't cut it anymore. About how she didn't understand why. She didn't understand. So she would _not_ think about any of that.

_Yeah, right._

She sighed and sank in her chair. She looked at it for at least 47 seconds before she picked it up. She read the words again. '_Opportunity'_ didn't seem like the right terminology for this. She set the sheet on her desk and put her hands over it. Maybe if she didn't look at it... Her eyes looked around her office. She loved that office. It was _hers._ It was _her._ Everything in here meant something to her. And yet, it didn't mean anything if he... She stopped her mind from going there and picked up the piece of paper again.

Indonesia.

A year.

"Knock, knock!" his voice sounded cheerful. So fake. Still better than silence.

She smiled instantly. "Oh! I know that one! Who's there?"

"No, Bones, it's me."

"No-Bones- It's-Me who?"

"Me. Booth. I was just making knocking sounds with my mouth." Now he sounded annoyed.

"Why would you do that?"

Wow. The one time he wasn't making a joke, she decided not to be literal. _We're so in sync,_ he chuckled sadly to himself. He walked up to her desk and his eyes caught a glimpse of what she was holding between her fingers.

Brennan quickly put it in her desk drawer before brushing a piece of hair from her face, and she looked up at him. Hoping. _Please don't talk about it. Please. Not now. _

"It'll be good for us," he said despite her silent prayer to him.

_Us. What's that mean anymore?_ She dug deep into his eyes with hers. And she saw it. She would never be able to say _how,_ but she knew. He was still thinking about their fight, too. About his conclusion. He had walked away from her twice now. She knew the signs. And yet, she couldn't let it go. She couldn't let them go.

"Booth, I don't..."

"No. It's a good thing. This is a great opportunity for you."

That word again. She looked down, eyes drifting to the drawer.

"It'll give us... perspective. Like a new beginning."

She bit her lips before looking up at him again. She liked their old beginning just fine. She didn't need a new one. What she needed was a new... _now._

He really, with all his heart, wanted to be able to work with her like before. But the way things were, the way it hurt every time the subject of _them_ came up even just in his mind... He couldn't do it anymore. He needed to save himself now. Maybe Sweets was right about him being a hoarder, like their victim. It was time to get rid of some of the unnecessary weight he was carrying; time to run before everything that was falling apart, falling on his head, ended up killing him. Before he ended up stuck there for good, before he starved to death.

"We'll be back in a year," he shrugged. "It's nothing! We've been apart for a year before. It's just... a break. A hiatus." _Who are you trying to convince here?_

She kept silent.

"Say something," he pleaded, almost wincing. "Anything." He shifted on his feet and buried his hands in his pockets. "Even something anthropologically annoying."

"We'd be back in a year," she echoed his words.

"Yeah," he breathed out.

She looked at the drawer again.

"We... uhm... Sweets said he got something psychologically uninteresting for us. That's why I'm here."

"Great," she mumbled.

She walked passed him. He stayed behind. She turned around to see what his problem was, but he seemed lost, looking all around her office.

"You looking for something?" she asked.

_Not anymore._

He followed her out.

..........

"You know what your problem is?" Sweets asked bluntly as soon as they sat down.

_Which one?_

"You know why you can't seem to close this case properly?" he clarified.

"Yes!" Bones said quickly. "Because Caroline is being unreasonable."

"No. Because you're purposely avoiding closing it."

Booth snorted. She echoed him.

"That doesn't make any sense," he laughed off.

"Why would we sabotage this case?" she added.

"To delay the inevitable," Sweet dropped. "Which is the end of your partnership."

Even the word 'silence' was too loud, here. Booth wiped something off his shoe. Brennan crossed her arms over her chest. She refuted the psychologist, because Booth didn't. But she might have talked 7 seconds too late. Seven seconds of dreading emptiness too late.

"We've said repeatedly that we'd be back in a year."

Sweets nodded. He looked sad. Or was he offering pity?

"Yeah," the young doctor huffed. "So you've said."

Brennan risked a look at Booth. Scrubbing his shoe was still more important to him than arguing with the boy. So she concentrated on her own shoe.

..........

"We did it," she murmured, looking at the handcuffed murderer being taken into custody. Out of their hands.

"Yeah..." he lingered. "It's done."

Stillness. All around. The underlying meaning of all this flashing in front of their eyes.

She tried and he tried, but they didn't know what to say. Words weren't enough. Words were too much. Time was up.

"Do you wanna..." he started out of habit, so he had to finish, "... grab a beer?"

"Not really," she confessed after some hesitation.

But they had to do something, right? This couldn't be _it._

"Do you maybe want to go to the diner?" she suggested.

"I'm not really in the mood," he stated.

"Yeah, me neither."

_Thai food?_

_Take outs?_

"Well... goodnight," she cut the tension short.

"Goodbye, Bones."

She stared at him. _Goodbye, Bones?!_ He stared back.

"Bye," she whispered, abruptly turning around to enter the elevator. She didn't look at him as the door closed. She couldn't let him how he got to her. Not anymore.

..........

Brennan hadn't realized she had gone back to the Jeffersonian until she actually set foot in the lab. Like she had been on autopilot. She stopped walking, wondering what the hell she was doing there. There was nothing for her to do here. She turned around to leave.

"Dr. Brennan! I'm glad I caught you," Cam said, walking towards her, all dressed up and ready to go.

Brennan wasn't really listening. Her heart was still hammering in her chest, with no indication it would eventually calm down. Her mind replayed his goodbye as a looped distraction to everything else surrounding her.

"Miss Julian just called. It looks like the case is air tight. You don't have to worry," Cam continued, obviously too concerned about the fact that she was late to notice the anthropologist looked like she was about to faint. She looked down at her watch, cursed something about how typical it was for her to be tardy for a date when she really liked the guy. And before Brennan even noticed her boss was speaking to her, she was gone.

Alone in the now empty hall, Brennan looked around for a sign that someone else was there. But she didn't find any. Her heels clicked loudly on the floor as she walked for no reason towards Angela's office. She knew what she would find. Nothing. It was dark and the door was closed. She had already gone home.

Brennan tightened her grip around her keys. There was nothing for her to do at home.

.........

She knocked only once. Angela was laughing when she opened the door, but her happy predisposition quickly vanished when she saw her best friend's expression.

"Honey, what's wrong?" she instantly let out.

Brennan opened her mouth to say she was fine, but the lie stayed wedged in her tightening throat. She tried to clear it, but it made it worse.

"Come in," Angela whispered.

But Brennan had just noticed Hodgins in the background. Her gut twisted sorely. She tried to smile, but it couldn't reach her eyes which were already glossy with salted nonsense.

"I forgot about you two," she managed to say, pointing behind Angela.

The artist looked behind her, but rapidly put her attention back on the one who needed it.

"You're here to talk, I'm kicking him out," she whispered, in all seriousness.

Brennan shook her head. Who was she to barge in someone else's happiness? Her eyes were stinging now, but it didn't bother her as much as her chest, compressing, in need of air. She breathed in a shaky, obstructive breath.

"No," she gasped. "You keep him close." Her voice cracked. She stood up straight and tried to breathe again. There. Ok. A single tear escaped and ran down her cheek. _Shit._ She wiped it off, irritated by herself.

"Bren..." Angela reached for her, but Brennan was already halfway down the stairs.

She slammed the door of her car as if it could actually keep the pain outside. She gasped for air again. Her chest was aching. Her throat tightened even more. Burning. She started the engine, blinking away the tears that kept forming against her will to see where she was going. She wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel tightly until they hurt. She had no idea where she was. She looked at her GPS. _Car, could you please get us there a little faster?_ she heard him say in that teasing voice. Her foot slammed on the break. She tried to swallow one last time, until her lungs screamed out of air. She inhaled loudly for what seemed like eternity. Pressing her hand over her mouth, she shut her eyes. Her shoulders shook up and down, as she struggled to contain sharp wailings. She sobbed loudly, unable to breathe in or out. Her hands violently struck the wheel. Another mute scream stabbed her throat as she brought both her hands over her mouth.

..........

It was late. Too late to be there. Way too late. Nothing was clear. She had no more answers nor less questions than she had before. Things were the same, really. Stagnant. Done. Still, she had walked up the stairs and, strangely enough, she didn't truly hesitate. Until she was standing in front of the door. She listened, almost pressing her ear against it. She had not processed this. She didn't want to. She didn't care. She was a mess, inside and out. She didn't care. She would not be able to give answers to questions that would no longer be asked. She didn't care. All she cared about was behind that door. No longer waiting for her.

Her hand turned the handle. It wasn't locked. She didn't take it as a sign. She just accepted it. The familiar scent of this too familiar place greeted her into the dimmed entrance. She shut the door behind her in silence. Her eyes grazed the tranquil, vacant living room. She kept on making her way through the apartment. A noise came from the end of the room. Her heart started pounding more strongly, as a warning, perhaps. She walked towards it anyway. She reached the doorway of his bedroom. She stood still. Unsteadily.

He hadn't been expecting her, but she didn't startle him. He stepped away from his closet and dropped the clothes he had just taken from it into his opened suitcase on the floor.

"Bones?" he said out loud. He didn't sound surprised. Merely softly curious.

Her eyes darted to the half-filled suitcase on the floor. She ignored the now usual twinge of pain that came with it. She settled her eyes back on him. She was not going to let him win this time.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, taking a step towards her before he stopped himself. He wasn't going to let her do this again.

She didn't respond. She just blinked once and entered his bedroom.

His heart would give out any second now, he could just feel it.

"Are you ok?" he huffed, thinking of how pathetic he actually sounded.

If she hadn't been totally drained and focused on not taking no for an answer, she would have laughed in his face. Did she look ok? She kept quiet, but shook her head no. As if he actually needed an answer to _that_ question.

His throat tightened slightly. He bit the insides of his cheek, but didn't look away.

She kept approaching. Slowly. Her mind was wavering, undecided, but her steps were secure. She wouldn't let him tell her that this wasn't enough. She took a final step before she was finally right in front of him. He wanted to leave? Fine. She was going to take what she could first.

"Look, if you want to talk, I..." his voice died when he felt her leaning in. Her lips, already parted, about to close in on his. "Bones..."

She kissed him once. She was nervous, her lips were trembling. She didn't mind. She felt his palms on her hips. She knew he was about to stop her. Her hands went up and grabbed the neck of his T-Shirt. She locked eyes with him as a warning. But the softness she saw in them, the raw pain she probably had caused, lingering in the dark shade of brown softened her.

"Please," she only whispered, still holding tightly to his shirt.

He didn't move. His mind was racing and yet he felt a certain calmness. Maybe that was giving up. Giving up on holding back. Giving up on letting go. Maybe, instead of asking for what he couldn't have, he could take what he could. His hands stayed on her hips, his thumbs brushed her shirt up ever so slowly he wasn't even sure they were moving.

She tentatively brought her lips to his again, stopping just before as she felt his hands tense up on her. Eyes closed, she whispered again, more insistently. "Please, Booth."

Their lips met at the same time, timidly, as to not scare the moment away. When he pulled her slightly closer and closed his mouth on her bottom lip, she relaxed and loosened her grip on his shirt. She opened and closed her mouth again, tasting him more deeply. Her hands traveled down his pectoral muscles until they reached his lower back, and she pulled him against her, completely. Wanting to feel every inch of him, she pressed her whole body against his, making him take a step back to regain his balance. She grabbed the back of his neck and darted her tongue out, meeting his instantly.

He caressed her arched back, lost his fingers into her hair, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones. He let a sigh into her mouth and she swallowed it with a soft moan. Warm. Their breathing grew louder as she slid her hands under the cotton fabric to graze the skin of his chest with her unsteady fingers. She broke the kiss and abandoned his tongue long enough to slide his T-Shirt off. He watched her as she studied his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his stomach, his nipples, thoroughly concentrated, nibbling on her bottom lip. Then, he reached for her lower back and brought her close again. He took his time with her blouse, caressing the skin he was revealing with every button he undid. He cupped her face again to kiss her, standing tall in front of her. He let his hands part the blouse and pushed it over her shoulders. She quivered. It fell to the floor.

Trembling even more than before, her fingers went to his stomach and hooked behind the waistband of his jeans. She undid the button, brought the zipper down. Her hands circled his waist to his back, and she slid her hands inside his pants and pulled on his ass, purposely bringing his groin to hers. She didn't move, getting lost in his rapid breathing as he undid the zipper on the back of her skirt, kissing the sensitive skin between her neck and her shoulder. Her skirt fell to the ground. His pants followed. They took a step back at the same time, to look at what they had respectively uncovered. Standing in their underwear, breathing somewhat erratically, in front of each other. There was no more touching. Yet they were taking everything they could from each other. Their eyes locked for the first time. Recognizing each other. He was still her partner, she wanted to believe. She touched him first, putting both her hands flat against his heaving chest. His own hands, flat against her back, then down to her waist. His heart was screaming, yelling out, warning him to stop. And for once, he didn't want to listen. She was there. All there. She was his to take. But something broke inside of him. He almost heard it crack. And he saw as she felt the same shock go through her. She breathed in and held her breath, trying to look strong. Trying to hold on. And she reached for his shoulders, pulling him against her. He held her tightly as she hid her face in the crook of his neck. He held her even closer, as he buried his face in the scent of her hair. She clutched, tightening her arms around him, digging her fingers into his skin. Painfully. Desperately. _I wish you wouldn't keep letting me hug you when I get scared. _He sighed and wrapped around her like he knew how to. The only thing he never failed at. His eyes shut tightly as his stomach twisted sorely. _Hey, I get scared and I'll hug you. We'll call it even._

She kissed his neck once. And twice. She felt his erection pressing on her stomach. She grazed her teeth onto his skin, bringing herself over him, instinctively close. He dug the tip of his finger into her thighs, parting them to feel her moist underwear through his. He undid the clasp of her bra and took it off as he took her mouth again, fever intensifying. Blinding. Tongues swirling, caressing. No teasing. The sounds of their lips, parting and meeting. Their breath mixing and encouraging each other.

Her breasts against him, he sighed into her ear, on the verge of losing himself, as he shoved his hands underneath her panties and pulled on her ass, crushing her against him. She finally moaned out loud, gasping, still clutching to him. He took off her underwear.

Completely naked, she roamed his whole body with her hands, exploring. Taking every detail in. Every time her most sensitive spot brushed against his hardness, she ached to have him inside her. She pulled him onto the mattress. Kneeling on the bed, face to face. Their eyes locked again, but not for long, as their painful yearning for each other prevented them from wanting to focus on the sadness in their eyes. Their hands met on their sides. Their fingers intertwined. They kissed again, still slow. Still learning. Still meant to do so. She leaned back, bringing him on top of her, and took his boxers off in one swift move. The sound of their hands grasping onto each other. She hooked her legs around him, digging her heels onto him to pull him as close as she could. Her wetness called out to him as he brushed against her, almost. He took one of her breasts into his palm and brought his mouth to it. Tasting. Provoking the intimate reaction he seeked as she wriggled under him, squirming for more. Losing herself. Their eyes locked and didn't let go while their hands met on his hard impatience. Her ass rose from the bed in expectation. They put his tip on her and her hips drew rapid circles. She breathed out a wordless plea, her head jerking backwards into the pillow. Her took her need and turned it into pleasure with his thumb until she brought her hands to his back, gripping and pulling. He entered her completely. They watched each other hold their breath. Clench their teeth to prevent more cries. And with the utmost quiet honesty, they held onto each other until they both fell apart.

..........

Eyes still closed, she listened to their silence for a while, finding herself in his heavy, sleeping embrace. As softly as possible, she opened her eyelids and turned her head on the pillow and she watched him. His eyes were closed. She felt like smiling, but she didn't have the strength. Her heart swelled and almost burst as his hand let go of her skin. _Entropy is a natural force that pulls everything apart at a subatomic level. Everything changes._ Even in his sleep, he was letting go of her. _Not everything, Bones._ She stared at the ceiling for quite some time before turning to rest on her side, her back turned to him. Her eyes dropped to the suitcase on the floor. _Are you going to betray me? _It hit her for the millionth time. _No._ And it killed her all over again. _Nonetheless, I shall be vigilant._

She got up, careful not to wake him, and got dressed in the most unbearable solitude. She looked at him again, lost in the wrecked, wrinkled sheets of his own bed. She held onto his dresser to put on her shoes. And she saw it. Those pieces of paper, awkwardly taped together as a vain rescue attempt. Her letter. He had read it.

She turned to him again. Her heart skipped a beat, low, dull. His eyes were fixed on her. She wasn't running. He was. Her eyes shut briefly. There was no more time. They had gone somewhere. She still didn't know what it meant. But she had tried. She had taken what she could. She had loved.

She left as she had arrived. Without answers.

..........

As an anthropologist, she had been trained to observe without disrupting, to embrace the meaning of things without intervening, to experience without conquering. She had been trained to be an outsider. Had she ever really needed training? It had seemed to fall within her range of natural abilities, simply. She had chosen what would prevent her from investing herself in the uninterrupted flow of existence. Until him. He had taken her hand, years before and led her through a tortuous path made of raw emotions she could not identify. He had given her a role, a place, an identity. He had carefully built their world so that she would know where she belonged, so that she _could_ belong. She had not asked for it. She had not asked to trade the security of her position with the unpredictable succession of sentiments he offered.

She was not used to feel. She did not know how. She had not lied to him. This was not within her range of natural abilities. She could categorize, analyze, determine and dismiss. She could not feel. It was too painful... She chuckled at this paradox. Tonight, she had decided to shelter herself in the passivity of her initial function. An observer, smiling at the teeming activity of this hour-glass that was life. Foreign to it.

She sighed. She was not foreign to any of it. They were her friends, twirling in the softness of a joy they were courageous enough to welcome in their hearts, conscious that it might soon become pain. It had become pain in the past already. Hodgins and Angela were the best example of it. This unpredictable succession of sentiments had pulled them apart, reunited them, torn them, saved them. Tonight they were here, celebrating their courage. She envied them.

She had hesitated before going to this reception, her sense of responsibility towards her friends stronger than her lingering jealousy. She could not feel? She felt too much. That was the heart of the matter, so to speak. She had felt too much the preceding night, in the arms of that man who had awakened her to the completeness of sorrow and ecstasy, all at the same time.

He had enveloped her in the warmth of his presence, slowly but surely claiming every inch of her self, leaving what he had called himself a metaphorical mark on her being. Now he was deserting her in a freezing, paralyzing loneliness. She knew she had pushed him away. She knew he had begged to be her refuge. But she could not help hating him for it. He had made her feel. This was not within the range of her natural abilities. He had made her change.

He had made her change. This was what she was trying to resist, change. She was clinging to who she thought to be. Unsure this was really her now.

She took a sip of champagne, trying to swallow that difficult truth. Maybe she had ruined everything, maybe she had ruined herself. It was too late anyway. It was too complicated, inextricable, inexplicable. She was amazingly apt at complicating things. She had been trained to do this too. Or was it within the range of her natural abilities too?

She saw Angela wave her hand at someone, inviting that person to join their tightly knit group, immersed in a seemingly intense conversation. Bones felt transparent. Angela had not waved at her. She sighed, no... She had asked her to join them a dozen times, to no avail. She was the one eternally rejecting life, preferring her position of outsider. Thinking she did. The truth was that she hated it. She was hating it.

When she saw who Angela had been waving to, her heart stopped altogether. It was him. His natural presence overwhelmed her. The vivid images of the preceding night blurring her vision. Maybe it was not too late. Maybe she could... Her hopes waned when she realized he had spotted her, but had preferred to ignore her presence to join their friends. She swallowed, clenching her teeth to fight the merciless invasion of familiar tears.

He had searched for her the instant he had stepped into the room. _You know what ever happened to seeing someone across a crowded room, eyes meeting, that old black magic gets you in its spell?_ It was still true, five years later. Six years later. Despite the incomprehensible hell they had built for themselves. It was true each time he saw her and remembered this infinitesimal moment when he had decided she was the one for him. But she had decided otherwise. He could not forget that. It did not matter how he felt drawn to her, she would not let him close anyway. It was useless. So he chose to accept the silent invitation made by Angela.

He had hesitated before going to this reception, but his sense of responsibility towards his friends had been stronger than his intense weariness. He did not know if he wanted to know. If that made any sense. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. A part of him was determined to understand what had motivated her. What had pushed her to accept him at her innermost core to escape afterward. But another part of him knew there would be no answer to it. Just another excuse. Just another attempt to cling to the woman she thought to be. The woman he knew she was not. He could not fight her demons with her anymore. He had lost patience. Hope, too.

She ached for him. Suddenly the security of her remoteness became unbearable. She could not observe anymore. _If you keep living trying to protect yourself, nothing is ever gonna touch you. _She wanted to get inside the hour-glass, it did not matter if she drowned.

She got up, searching for something that might get his attention, their attention. She did not want to be transparent, she wanted to exist, be part of the world he had built for them. She stepped towards the center of the room. Clearing her throat before raising her half emptied glass.

"Excuse me, I'd like to make a toast please," she exclaimed loudly.

The room suddenly fell silent. She panicked. She had no idea of what to say.

"To love," she let out awkwardly. When she saw him frown at her words, she bit her lips, fighting yet another invasion of tears. "Love..." she added faintly, her voice breaking. "...Love is..."

_Love is what? A plague?_

Angela took a step to rescue her friend, but Booth was faster. He grabbed Bones' arm and whisked her away, giving an uncomfortable smile to the awaiting crowd.

"What are you doing?" he shot harshly, once they were isolated in the hall.

She wiped her tears violently, "I don't know! I wanted... I wanted you to see me!"

"You did that for me?" he asked, disbelieving.

"You deliberately ignored me!"

"So you decided to make a spectacle of yourself?"

He regretted his words the instant he had uttered them. But it was too late. She was hurt.

"Go to hell!" she shouted, heading for the exit.

"I'm already in hell!" he shouted after her.

She froze. He saw her shoulders suddenly weighted down by guilt.

"I didn't expect it to be more difficult," she whispered, without turning around to face him. "After what happened last night."

He frowned, disbelieving. "Really? What did you expect exactly?"

She took a breath, she needed to sit down. She headed for the nearest wall, and let herself slide against it until she reached the floor, staring into nothingness.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I wanted to feel. I guess."

He nodded pensively, sitting beside her.

"I wanted to feel you," she continued, shaking her head at the insanity of her attempt. "I know it doesn't make any sense..."

_You all want to lose yourself in another person. You believe that love is transcendent and eternal. I want to believe that, too._"It makes sense," he said, taking her hand.

They remained motionless for an instant, sitting side by side on the cold floor of this anonymous hall, observed by strangers. She was within the hour-glass now, she was alive. Pain was irrelevant, it would be as long as he would hold her hand and continue to show her the way. For how long now?

"I don't want you to leave," she blurted out.

He sighed, "I don't want me to leave either."

"It's my fault. I want to fix it," she said, determined.

He chuckled.

"What?"

"It's not something that can be _fixed_, Bones." he said with a paternalizing tone, playing with their entwined fingers.

She felt her throat tighten at his apparent certitude.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Me too..."

Silence settled an instant. Heavy with meaning, pressingly reminding them of what little time left together they had, unable to make anything of it but wait for the inevitable.

"You think we missed our moment?" she asked, searching for his gaze.

She remembered what Rebecca had told her years before about missing her moment with Booth. At that time, she had considered the concept to be ludicrous. _Nothing in this universe happens just once. Nothing. Infinity goes in both directions. There is no unique event, no singular moment_. This was what she told Angela when she had asked the same question. But today she did not know if she would get another chance. She had ruined too many of them already.

"I don't know if it's about moments," he reflected quietly, "Not between you and me."

"Then what is it?" she frowned, afraid.

"It's inevitable," he smiled tenderly. "We've been apart before, we missed chances before. But we're here today. We'll be here tomorrow."

"You leave tomorrow," she reminded him, earnestly. "In seventeen hours and fourteen minutes."

"But I'll come back. I'll always come back. I can't help myself."

She nodded, desperate to believe him, but unable to. Complicating the complicated.

"What if this time you don't?"

Weariness seized him again.

"I can't keep trying to convince you, you know." Suddenly it hit him. "Is this why you made love with me? Because you thought I wasn't coming back?"

_Maybe. _"I did it to make this real," she replied.

"It's always _been_ real!"

"No!" she refuted. "It was theoretical. But now... _Now_ it's real." _And it hurts._

He considered her, an instant. The same, eternal, sempiternal doubt. And the same lack for evidence, just... words. Again. There was no way out of this mess. He had thought there could be, but... No, there was a way. He was a gambler. He was willing to take the risk.

"You'll just have to trust me," he said, his gaze intense.

He was a gambler. She wanted actions, words were not enough. He would show her. He would come back. He would risk to lose her for good, simply because he _knew_. It was inevitable. There were no missed chances. He let go of her hand before getting up.

She took it back, squeezed it. She hid her face into his neck, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Remembered him. All of him. And she finally let go.

"I'll see you, then," she whispered.

And he left.

_You know, being a sniper I took, a lot of lives, What I'd like to do before I'm done is try and catch at least that many murderers._

His cosmic balance sheet wasn't complete. She still wanted to help him with that.

**The E****nd.**

**Well, we've got nothing left to blackmail you with. Nothing else to hold back if you don't review. But we put our (of-so-strong) prides aside to quietly beg you. Don't we deserve a little love, too?**


End file.
